title: The strategy and advantage in use of an electronic probe for attachment measurement.
abstract: Attachment level has been used as the "gold standard" for assessment of the progression of periodontal disease. However, the measurement of attachment level by periodontal probing can be subject to a large number of error sources. Recently, we have designed experiments by using an electronic probe to identify the magnitude of error components due to the instrument, gingival tissue condition, position or probing angle, and time interval between replicate probings. Even with a very careful clinical setting, a few percent of uncontrollable large errors or outliers could not be avoided. A previously used 'option-3' probing scheme to reduce the unexpected large error is justified from the mathematical viewpoint.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Biology, Periodontal Disease Research Center, Gainesville, Florida 32610.
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Magnusson
authors.forename: Y Y
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Namgung
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004582:Electronics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D017622:Periodontal Attachment Loss / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010517:Periodontics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity