The purpose of this study is to examine the role of gum disease in affecting the long term prognosis of renal patients. This disease if untreated causes inflammatory response throughout the body. If the subject has gum disease, he/she will be randomly assigned to one of the two treatment groups. The study investigates what happens to inflammatory markers in blood and saliva after you are treated for gum disease.

The main goal of this project was to explore the contribution of chronic periodontitis to systemic inflammation in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). To achieve this goal, the project had two specific objectives:

1. a) To compare the prevalence of periodontal infection between CKD and non-CKD populations and b) to explore the association between the presence of periodontal infection and the uremic status of CKD patients.
2. a) To assess the levels of systemic inflammatory markers, IL-6 and CRP in the presence or absence of periodontal infection in CKD and b) to compare the serum IL-6 and CRP levels in response to periodontal intervention.

Inclusion Criteria:

• dental subjects with periodontitis,
• at least 10 teeth
• no periodontal (gum) treatment for the last year,
• no antibiotic for the last 4 months,
• no vascular access infection.

Exclusion Criteria:

• smokers