Tooth loss and radiographic bone loss in patients without regular supportive care: A retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: Very few studies have investigated the effect of patient and site factors on periodontal progression and long-term tooth loss in populations with minimal dental care. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess tooth loss and radiographic bone loss over at least 5 years in patients attending a national-health service primary care practice in Sicily and undergoing no regular care. METHODS: Records of two hundred consecutive patients with at least 5 years follow-up were screened and demographic, clinical and radiographic data were retrieved. Analyses of associations between patient and site factors and tooth loss were performed. RESULTS: After excluding not suitable patients, a total of 159 patient records with clinical and radiographic data with average 8.6 years follow-up were included. One hundred of these patients had no professional mechanical plaque removal (PMPR) carried out throughout the study follow-up. Nearly 65% of patients lost at least 1 tooth during the follow-up period, with a total of 400 extracted teeth (for periodontal and non-periodontal reasons). The annual tooth loss rate was slightly higher for "no PMPR" (untreated) patients (0.30 teeth/patient/year) compared with patients who had PMPR (0.27 teeth/patient/year). On a patient-level, only reduced frequency of daily tooth brushing was associated with tooth loss at logistic regression, whereas staging, grading and diagnosis of caries were associated with rates of tooth loss/year. At multilevel analysis including patient- and tooth-factors, age, diagnosis of caries and endodontic disease and percentage of bone loss at baseline were associated with tooth loss. CONCLUSION: This study confirms the importance of tooth brushing, initial bone loss, caries and endodontic disease in predicting tooth survival in a primary care setting.

Minimally Invasive Surgical Strategies in Regenerative/Reconstructive Periodontal Therapy.

FOCUSED CLINICAL QUESTION: After a quick overview on the original principles of guided periodontal regeneration (GTR), the aim of this paper focuses on the advantages of minimally invasive surgical techniques for periodontal regeneration/reconstruction. The specific clinical question to answer is: Are there new clinical parameters useful to choose the best minimal invasive surgery approach for each periodontal defect? An update of the decision trees is to propose after highlighting some clinical parameters deemed relevant for the choice of the most suitable minimally invasive surgical approach and which therefore are considered by us having a place in the new decision trees. SUMMARY: Starting from the paper of Evian dated 1985 until that of Aslan in 2017, we have analyzed the minimal periodontal surgical techniques proposed for the periodontal regeneration. In addition to the parameters set in the various flowcharts, we have highlighted the following additional parameters: papilla height loss; supra bone component of the defect; Δ Bone Sounding; width of keratinized tissue. CONCLUSION: The decision-making chart improved with the new clinically relevant factors may serve as a useful guideline for dentists, but to definitively validate it, further studies need to be developed in the future. In order to clarify the proposed flow chart, the authors present two different clinical cases.