Cellular Profile and Expression of Immunologic Markers in Chronic Apical Periodontitis from HIV-infected Patients Undergoing Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

IntroductionThis study tested the hypothesis that the inflammatory cell profile (CD3-, CD4-, CD8-, CD20-, and CD68-positive cells) and the expression of immunologic markers (tumor necrosis factor α, interferon-γ, interleukin-6, and interleukin-18) in chronic apical periodontitis are the same between non–HIV-infected patients and HIV-infected patients undergoing highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).MethodsThirty-four surgically excised chronic apical periodontitis lesions were sampled from 34 patients (17 HIV-infected and 17 non–HIV-infected). The lesions were extracted from teeth with no previous endodontic treatment. All HIV-infected patients were undergoing HAART. The specimens were submitted to histopathologic and immunohistochemical analyses by using an optical microscope. Immunoexpression was graded into 2 levels, focal to weak and moderate to strong. The χ2, Fisher exact, and Mann-Whitney tests were used to analyze all significant differences between groups.ResultsPeriapical cysts represented 70.6% and 52.9% of the lesions in the HIV-infected and non–HIV-infected groups, respectively; however, no statistically significant difference was observed (P = .481). There were no statistically significant differences between groups for the inflammatory cell profile and for any of the immunologic markers (P > .05).ConclusionsThere are no statistically significant differences of the cellular profile and expression of immunologic markers in chronic apical periodontitis between non–HIV-infected patients and HIV-infected patients undergoing HAART.