Disease progression in periodontally healthy and maintenance subjects.
BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to determine whether the rate of attachment loss in periodontally healthy subjects in a prevention regimen would differ from the rate of disease progression in periodontitis subjects enrolled in a maintenance program.


METHODS
Fifty-five periodontally healthy subjects and 57 periodontitis subjects were clinically and microbiologically monitored at baseline and at 1, 2, and 3 years. Clinical parameters measured at six sites per tooth included bleeding on probing, visible plaque, probing depth, and attachment level. Subgingival plaque samples were taken from the mesio-buccal aspect of every tooth and were analyzed for the levels of 40 bacterial species using checkerboard DNA-DNA hybridization. The significance of differences over time in the clinical parameters was determined using repeated-measures analysis of variance, whereas the significance of differences between groups was determined using the unpaired t test. The Mann-Whitney test was used for microbial analyses, and P values were adjusted for multiple comparisons.


RESULTS
Mean clinical parameters improved for both groups over time. By the end of the study, 4% of the sites in maintenance subjects lost > or =2 mm of attachment, whereas in the prophylaxis subjects only 1% of the sites lost > or =2 mm of attachment. Maintenance subjects lost attachment primarily at shallow buccal and lingual sites. The maintenance subjects harbored significantly higher levels of most test species throughout the study. The maintenance program did not reduce the levels of red complex species to those typical of healthy subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
Treated periodontitis subjects under maintenance displayed more rapid attachment loss than periodontally healthy subjects in a preventive regimen. The greater propensity to disease progression may be related to an elevated exposure to periodontal pathogens.
Teles
R P
RP
Department of Periodontology, The Forsyth Institute, 140 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115, USA. rteles@forsyth.org
Patel
M
M
Socransky
S S
SS
Haffajee
A D
AD
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification; D003777:Dental Prophylaxis / Q000379:methods*; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009910:Oral Hygiene / Q000379:methods*; D017622:Periodontal Attachment Loss / Q000150:complications / Q000382:microbiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010512:Periodontal Index; D010518:Periodontitis / Q000150:complications / Q000382:microbiology / Q000628:therapy*; D012016:Reference Values; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome