ABSTRACT

Background: There alveolar bone response while orthodontic tooth movement (OTM) is influenced by many hormonal conditions such as diabetes mellitus (DM).

Aim: To find out and compare the response of alveolar bone of diabetic rats with healthy rats while undergoing experimental tooth movement in terms of mean osteoclastic count, total areas covered by osteoblasts and total resorptive areas.

Methodology: This study involved 40 male wistar rats, that were divided in to 2 groups with 20 rats in each group. Group A was control group with healthy normoglcemic control rats, and group B was diabetic group with rats having experimental diabetes. The orthodontic appliance was placed between incisor and first molar to initiate experimental tooth movement for 3 weeks. After 3 weeks rats were sacrificed and histology sections were seen under microscope to observe the alveolar bone response in terms of mean osteoclastic count, total areas covered by osteoblasts and total resorptive areas.

Results: The results revealed that total alveolar bone resorption surfaces and mean count of osteoclasts was significantly more while total areas covered by osteoblasts was significantly less as compared with controls.

Conclusion: Diabetes mellitus resulted in increase in alveolar bone resorption and decrease in osteogenesis while undergoing experimental orthodontic tooth movement in rats.

Keywords: Diabetes mellitus; Alveolar bone; Bone remodeling.