GUIDED TISSUE REGENERATION UPDATE

The ultimate goal of periodontal therapy is to restore periodontal tis sues lost through disease or trauma. The most predictable way to accom plish this goal is by guided tissue regeneration (GTR). The principle of GTR is to give preference to certain cells to repopulate the wound area to form a new attachment apparatus. Clinically this is accomplish ed by placing a barrier over the defect thereby excluding gingival tis sues from the wound during early healing. The first generation of GTR barriers were non-resorbable which implies that they have to be remove d in a second surgical procedure. Resorbable barriers have recently be en introduced, changing GTR into a single-step procedure. Periodontal defects that will predictably benefit from GTR therapy are intrabony, furcation class II and gingival recession defects. This paper reviews the scientific evidence of what can be achieved by GTR procedures for various periodontal defects as well as factors of importance to increa se the predictability of a successful treatment outcome.