Conditions: Chronic Periodontitis
Keywords: periodontal disease dendritic cells antibiotics
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 18
Healthy volunteers: yes

Brief summary:
The investigators hypothesize that blood dendritic cells harbor pathogens from the oral cavity in chronic periodontitis and disseminate these pathogens to atherosclerotic plaques.

Detailed description:
To address this hypothesis, a clinical study in humans with moderate to severe chronic periodontitis has been designed. This is an interventional study involving scaling and root planing and two arms: 1. treatment with PO amoxocillin/metronidazole plus chlorhexidine oral rinse; 2. no antibiotics or oral rinse. It is expected that the antibiotics plus chlorhexidine will prevent the dendritic cell response to infection (bacteremia) elicited by scaling and root planing.

Arms:
arm 1: Each subject will received oral Amoxicillin/Amoxil/lansoprazole/Flagyl 250 mg of each three times a day for 8 days. Subjects will also rinse their mouths with 2 ounces of 0.12% chlorhexidine/peridex mouthrinse two times per day. Subjects will also receive mechanical debridement at the baseline visit. Intervention Amoxicillin/Amoxil/lansoprazol 500 mg/ Metronidazole/Flagyl 250 mg arm 2: Subjects assigned to standard treatment will receive full mouth scaling and root planing using hand instrumentation (curettes) and ultrasonic scalers

Interventions: intervention 1: Oral Antibiotic and Oral Rinse intervention 2: Standard Treatment
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: PO Amoxicillin in 500 mg / Metronidazole 250 mg of each TID for 8 days plus 2 ounces of 0.12% chlorhexidine mouthrinse used BID intervention 2: Full mouth scaling and root planing using hand instrumentation (curettes) and ultrasonic scalers

Protocol document: