Gingival crevicular blood as a source to screen for diabetes control in a dental office setting

Purpose: To determine if gingival crevicular blood (GCB) could potentially be used as a reliable source to screen for diabetes control, this study compared glycosylated hemoglobin (HbAlc) levels found in GCB and serum. Methods: Patients diagnosed (n= 29), with diabetes received a venipuncture on the finger and serum blood (control) obtained was tested for HbAlc status chair-side. GCB (test) was collected at site(s) with evidence of bleeding after probing and the HbAlc value was determined in the same manner as with the serum blood. Results: There was a significant correlation between serum blood and GCB using the HbAlc test. The Pearson correlation was 0.98 (P< 0.0001). The Altman-Bland bias was -0.21 (P= 0.0095), indicating that on average, the GCB method slightly underestimated the venipuncture serum (control) method for determining HbAlc values. The Altman-Bland 95% agreement interval ranged from -1.02 to 0.6. Furthermore, the HbAlc values were independent of the gingival sites used for collection with intra-patient GCB values exhibiting a correlation value between sites of 0.91 (P< 0.0001).