Smokers may want to quit before undergoing oral surgery, say researchers in the October issue of the Journal of Periodontology.
Swedish researchers investigated the relationship between tobacco smoking and the inflammatory response in smokers who consumed 10 to 20 cigarettes a day. They studied 15 smokers and 15 nonsmokers with moderate-to-severe periodontitis who were undergoing oral surgery. They conducted clinical examinations and collected gingival crevicular fluid, or GCF, before the subjects underwent surgery and at one and five weeks after treatment.
After analyzing the substances in the GCF, researchers found that the body’s defense mechanism was weakened in smokers, whereas the defense mechanism in nonsmokers promoted a more favorable healing response. They interpreted these findings as smoking possibly interfering with the treatment response. They said that it also might explain the clinical evidence of inferior treatment outcomes in smokers.
