Lactate dehydrogenase: An enzymatic biomarker in oral health and disease

Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is a ubiquitous enzyme, which has the pivotal role in the clinical diagnosis of many disease processes. LDH is known to catalyze the oxidative conversion of the substrate pyruvate to lactate and has been used as an infl ammatory marker. LDH is routinely present in the cytoplasm of the cell that gets released into the extracellular environment upon cellular lysis and cell death.[1] Thus, LDH represents a marker to cell death and tissue breakdown and its raised level often signifi es a disease process.