Configural Frequency Analysis for Exploring Bacterial Sets in Periodontal Healthand Disease

摘要

Periodontal research has been concerned with identifying bacterial sets in oralhealth and disease. Configural frequency analysis (CFA) is a taxonomical method used to test the statistical significance of patterns of elementary cell frequencies in cross-tabulated data, and may therefore be used to evaluate interactions among occurrences and non-occurrences of periodontal microorganisms. CFA patterns may exist as configural types or antitypes depending on whether observed cell frequencies are greater or less than expected frequencies, respectively, based on table marginals. CFA was applied to two published data sets. In the first, the occurrence of Bacteroides Porphyromonas gingivalis (Bg) and Treponema denticola (Td) was studied in military subjects. Analysis of individual cells of the resultant two-by-two contingency table revealed the existence of a single antitype (Td in the absence of Bg) suggesting a sequential phenomenon.