Periodontitis is an inflammatory disease affecting the connective tissue surrounding the teeth leading to tooth loss. Pathogens associated with periodontitis interact with Toll-like receptors (TLRs) to induce cytokines causing and aggravating disease. We screened 197 individuals suffering from generalized periodontitis for the presence of Asp299Gly and Thr399Ile of TLR-4 as well as Arg753Gln of TLR-2 in comparison to matched controls. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of TLR-4 were elevated among patients (odd's ratio 3.650, 95% CI 1.573-8.467, P < or = 0.0001), while no difference was observed for TLR-2. TLR-4 SNPs were correlated with chronic periodontitis (odd's ratio 5.562, 95% CI 2.199-14.04, P < or = 0.0001), but not with aggressive periodontitis. This observation was confirmed employing a group of periodontally healthy probands over 60 years of age. These data demonstrate that genetic variants of TLR-4 may act as risk factors for the development of generalized chronic periodontitis in humans.

Objective. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) management involves improving clinical outcomes and quality of life (QOL).Golimumab is used as add-on therapy for patients who have failed disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). This GO-MORE subanalysis investigated relationships between patient and physician expectations and outcomes. 43); 95.9% expected golimumab to be better than current treatment. Patients with fewer DMARD failures, higher disease activity, shorter disease duration, younger age, and female sex reported higher expectations (P < 0.05 for all). After 6 months, patients with the most positive expectations had higher remission rates (P < 0.0001) and greater HAQ DI (P < 0.0001) and EQ-5D (P < 0.0001) score improvements. At baseline, physicians expected 29.6% and 59.2% of patients to attain remission and low disease activity, respectively, after 3 months. Conclusion. Patients had high expectations for golimumab treatment. Patients with more positive expectations had greater remission rates, improvements in function, and QOL.

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