Antonino Cacioppo

Periodontal alteration of the microcirculation and hypercholesterolemia: a possible correlation?

Objective: We evaluated the morphological and parametric characteristics of the periodontal microcirculation in patients diagnosed as having hypercholesterolemia and high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Methods: Forty patients were recruited, 20 of whom were affected by hypercholesterolemia and 20 of whom were considered healthy. A videocapillaroscopic examination was carried out on the periodontal mucosa in the proximity of the frenulum (II, V sextant). Results: The difference between the parameters of the hypercholesterolemia group and the control group was evaluated with the Mann-Whitney U-test for non-parametric ordinal data; the level of significance being P < 0.05. The videocapillaroscopy documented extremely significant differences between the two groups, regarding the following parameters: total diameter of the loop (P = 0.0017), diameter of the afferent loops (P = 0.0004), diameter of the efferent loops (P = 0.00008) and periodontal density (P = 0.0001). Conclusions: The capillaroscopic examination revealed a morphological alteration of the periodontal microcirculation in patients with hypercholesterolemia, which is an expression of peripheral vascular phlogosis.

A non-parametric segmentation methodology for oral videocapillaroscopic images

We aim to describe a new non-parametric methodology to support the clinician during the diagnostic process of oral videocapillaroscopy to evaluate peripheral microcirculation. Our methodology, mainly based on wavelet analysis and mathematical morphology to preprocess the images, segments them by minimizing the within-class luminosity variance of both capillaries and background. Experiments were carried out on a set of real microphotographs to validate this approach versus handmade segmentations provided by physicians. By using a leave-one-patient-out approach, we pointed out that our methodology is robust, according to precision-recall criteria (average precision and recall are equal to 0.924 and 0.923, respectively) and it acts as a physician in terms of the Jaccard index (mean and standard deviation equal to 0.858 and 0.064, respectively).

Periodontal microcirculation in diabetics: An in vivo non-invasive analysis by means of videocapillaroscopy

Summary Background Diabetes mellitus is today considered a society-wide disease of a chronic/degenerative nature. Among the secondary effects of diabetes, the one that interests the dental surgeon most is diabetic parodontopathy. The aim of this study was to underline and objectify microcirculatory variations at a periodontal mucous level in type 2 diabetics. Material/Methods The study enrolled 80 subjects: 40 subjects with a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus type II (18 males and 22 females, between 44 and 85 years of age); and 40 healthy subjects (17 males and 23 females, between 44 and 78 years of age). All the subjects, both diabetic and healthy, were submitted to a videocapillaroscopic examination of the mucosa of the oral cavity. Results The measurements concerning the density (expressed in the number of loops/mm2) of the capillary loops presented differences between the healthy subjects and the diabetic subjects. The average periodontal capillary density (DC-P) was clearly superior in diabetic subjects (35.62±10.40 n°loop/mm2) compared to healthy subjects (17.55±3.88 n°loop/mm2). The statistical analysis was performed by means of the Mann Whitney test. The value of P (p=0.000000986), well below the level of significance, demonstrates the high significance of the results obtained. Conclusions The increase in capillary density could suggest the presence of active inflammatory phenomena or, more probably, a tendency to a greater susceptibility to inflammatory phenomena. Ultimately, this study shows that there is some peripheral damage to microcirculation at the masticatory mucous level in diabetic subjects and that such alterations can be instrumentally objectified and quantified through the videocapillaroscopic method.

Changes of oral microcirculation in chemotherapy patients: A possible correlation with mucositis?

The aim of this investigation is to appraise labial oral microcirculation in chemotherapy patients to clarify the effects of cytotoxic agents on oral microvessels. Twenty‐five patients with diagnosis of head and neck tumors were recruited in the study. All the patients were submitted to chemotherapy. Labial oral microcirculation was evaluated on labial mucosa using oral videocapillaroscopy. The statistical significance was checked with the Mann–Whitney U‐test (P < 0.05). The analysis of videocapillaroscopic patterns showed statistically significant variations relative to the diameter of the incoming loop; the diameter of the outgoing loop; and loop tortuosity. This study shows that capillary alterations to patients who receive chemotherapy occur in labial oral microcirculation. Clin. Anat. 27:417–422, 2014.

Flow evaluation of red blood cells in capillaroscopic videos

We aim at describing a non-parametric approach to evaluate blood cells velocity in oral capillascopic videos. The proposed methodology is based on the application of standard optical flow algorithms and it is part of a general environment to support during the diagnostic process for evaluating peripheral microcirculation in real time. We validated our approach versus handmade measurements provided by physicians. Results on real data pointed out that our system returns an output coherent to these latter observations.