Traditionally, the dental profession has primarily treated periodontitis using a mechanical/surgical, rather than a pharmaceutical, approach. However, based on experiments several decades ago which demonstrated that tetracyclines, unexpectedly, inhibit collagen? and bone?destructive mammalian?derived enzymes (e.g. the collagenases), and through non?antibiotic mechanisms, the concept of host?modulation therapy (HMT) was developed. Accordingly, two drug?development strategies evolved: (i) the development of non?antimicrobial formulations of doxycycline; and (ii) the chemical modification of tetracyclines to eliminate their antibiotic activity but retain (or even enhance) their anti?collagenase properties. Regarding the latter, these chemically modified tetracyclines (CMTs) sh…
MedWorm: Dentistry