Personalized medicine approaches to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic periodontitis

Over the years, the multifactorial and interactive nature of periodontal disease challenged clinicians in an attempt to delineate a pattern for its destructive progression. Periodontal disease is caused by persistent infl ammation of the periodontium in response to the colonization of microbes upon the tooth surface near the gingival margin and a subsequent biofi lm formation resulting in irreversible attachment loss of marginal alveolar bone and associated periodontal ligament and migration of the junctional epithelium. In spite of the infectious nature of periodontal disease, identifi cation of the oral microbiome and a complete understanding of its pathogenic pathway seem the most logical step toward the development of newer and effective approaches for periodontal therapy.