Effect of subgingival scaling during supportive therapy

Background, aims: This prospective study was designed to investigate the ro le of root debridement at 3 month intervals for patients with periodontitis whose disease had persisted following the completion of conventional perio dontal treatment. Methods: 39 maintenance patients with at least 4 pockets at least 4 mm deep were assigned to coronel scaling (CS) and subgingival scaling (SS) groups. Probing depths (PD), bleeding on probing (BOP) and relative attachment lev els (RAL) were recorded at all eligible sites at baseline and 3, 6, 9 and 1 2 months later. Plaque index. scores were recorded at the 12-month visit. A t every visit, following data collection, both groups received a coronal sc aling and the SS group, in addition, received a thorough subgingival debrid ement. In the CS group, subgingival debridement was performed only for 'los er' sites which enhibited loss of attachment greater than or equal to 2 mm relative to baseline values. Due to low compliance, only 31 patients comple ted the study. Thus, data analyses were carried out for 130 sites in 17 CS group patients and 146 sites in 14 SS group patients. Results: During the course of the study, 21 loser sites were identified in each group. but the difference in proportion of loser sites between groups was not significant. Furthermore, although there was a trend toward PD redu ction in both groups throughout the study, mean PD, RAL and BOP values were not significantly different from baseline values at any time point, and th en were no significant differences between groups with respect to these var iables. Mean plaque scores measured at the 12-month visit revealed no signi ficant differences between groups. Conclusion: These findings call into question the value of performing repea ted subgingival scaling at 3-month intervals for patients with persistent d isease.