title: Evidence summary: does 'routine' scaling have any beneficial effects, or is it a waste of time?
abstract: Since August 2009, members of the Primary Care Dentistry Research Forum (http://www.dentistryresearch.org) have taken part in an online vote to identify questions in day-to-day practice that they felt most needed to be answered with conclusive research. The question which received the most votes formed the subject of a critical appraisal of the relevant literature. Each month a new round of voting takes place to decide which further questions will be reviewed. Dental practitioners and dental care professionals are encouraged to take part in the voting and submit their own questions to be included in the vote by joining the website.This paper details a summary of the findings of the sixth critical appraisal. In conclusion, the critical appraisal identified a high quality systematic review carried out in 2007 relating to routine scaling. Since the Cochrane Review of 2007, we could find no new randomised controlled trials to assess the beneficial and sustained effects of routine scaling and polishing.
authors.affiliation: Cochrane Oral Health Group.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fox
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003741:Dental Deposits / Q000517:prevention & control; D012534:Dental Scaling / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055094:Evidence-Based Dentistry; D006801:Humans; D010510:Periodontal Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control; D006113:United Kingdom; D019564:Unnecessary Procedures