Are putative periodontal pathogens reliable diagnostic markers?

Periodontitis is one of the most common chronic inflammatory diseases. A number of putative bacterial pathogens have been associated with the disease and are used as diagnostic markers. In the present study, we compared the prevalence of oral bacterial species in the subgingival biofilm of generalized aggressive periodontitis (GAP) (n = 44) and chronic periodontitis (CP) (n = 46) patients with that of a periodontitis-resistant control group (PR) (n = 21).