Chronic stress associated to contraceptives use on the progression of ligature-induced periodontitis in rats

Abstract Introduction Contraceptives are widely used by women in much of the world. The stress associated with their use can lead adverse responses in the body. Objective The aim of this paper was to evaluate the effects of chronic stress associated with contraceptive use on the progression of ligature-induced periodontitis in female Lewis rats. Material and method Therefore, forty rats were randomly divided into 5 groups (n = 8): contraceptive and ligature group (CG); stress and ligature group (SG); contraceptive, stress and ligature group (CSG); ligature group (LG); and control group (CtrlG). An injectable contraceptive was administered to the CG and CSG groups at the beginning of the experiment. On the following day, periodontitis was induced in the CG, SG, LG and CSG groups by placing ligatures on the upper-right second molar. On the third day, the SG and the CSG were subjected to a chronic stress model using physical restraint and cold exposure. After 60 days, the animals were euthanized and submitted to histometric measurements. Two parameters were considered: histological attachment loss (CEJ-PL) and bone loss (CEJ-BC). Regarding CEJ-PL/CEJ-BC. Result The results indicated that the CtrlG (CEJ-PL 0.10 ± 0.00; CEJ-BC 0.34 ± 0.02) showed the lowest values (p<0.05). The SG group (CEJ-PL 0.90 ± 0.24; CEJ-BC 1.30 ± 0.28) presented higher values that were significantly different (p<0.05) from the results of the LG. The other groups exhibited similar statistical results (p>0.05). Conclusion The present results do not allow an assessment of the susceptibility of animals to ligature-induced periodontitis.