Non-surgical periodontal therapy and tooth loss. A cohort study

Background: No reliable evidence is available regarding the effect of perio dontal therapy on major disease endpoints such as tooth loss, edentulism, o r quality of life. The primary objective of this study was to assess the as sociation between tooth loss and the non-surgical periodontal treatment his tory of 1,021 members of the Kaiser Permanente Dental Care Program. Methods: Tooth loss rates were estimated using Poisson regression models, a djusting for some of the potentially confounding variables such as initial disease severity and extent. Results: Continuous non-surgical therapy (one or more non-surgical procedur es performed during 3 successive years), as opposed to no therapy during su ch a 3-year period, reduced the subsequent tooth mortality fate by 58% (rel ative rate, 0.42; 95% confidence interval, 0.29-0.61). Intermittent non-sur gical therapy reduced the tooth mortality rate by 48% (RR = 0.52; 95% confi dence interval, 0.34-0.80). As the number of non-surgical procedures increa sed, tooth loss rates decreased. Conclusions: These findings suggest that non-surgical periodontal therapy m ay be associated with a substantial reduction in tooth mortality. Different study designs and populations are needed to confirm these findings.