Change in oral hygiene behaviour after non-surgical periodontal therapy - A retrospective analyses.

AIM: This retrospective analysis investigates changes in daily oral hygiene behaviour after the initial phase of non-surgical periodontal therapy (NSPT). MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study includes 189 consecutive periodontitis patients treated for moderate to severe periodontitis. The authors used the oral hygiene behaviour questionnaire (OHB-9) to assess and evaluate the oral hygiene self-care practices at both intake and evaluation after an active phase of NSPT which consisted of repeated oral hygiene instruction (OHI), supra- and subgingival debridement and polishing. In addition, data on pocket probing depth and bleeding upon pocket probing (BOP) were extracted and PISA and PESA scores were collected. All these parameters are descriptive of the periodontal status at intake and the clinical response to NSPT. RESULTS: The OHB-9 showed an increased oral hygiene self-care level after the active phase of NSPT. At the evaluation, 85% of patients used a power toothbrush (PTB), representing an increase of 26% as compared with the intake. In addition, 64% reported brushing 3 min or longer, representing an increase of 33%. The use of woodsticks (WS) and interdental brushes (IDB) at least once a day increased with 15% and 40% respectively. The distribution changes on the answering scale were significant for IDB, WS and brushing duration. However, no significant relationship was found between oral hygiene behaviour at the evaluation and the improvement of the gingival inflammation evaluated by BOP percentage. CONCLUSION: The finding of the OHB-9 questionnaire reported was an increase of patients who brushed longer and used the PTB, WS and IDB on a daily basis. The observed improvements in gingival inflammation assessed as bleeding on probing tendency were not significantly associated with oral hygiene behaviour at the evaluation of NSPT.

Comparison of three qPCR-based commercial tests for detection of periodontal pathogens.

In periodontal practice microbial results of periodontal test kits for identification of key pathogens are an aid in the treatment planning. Information on the performance of commercially available test kits is therefore essential for the clinician. In this retrospective analysis three commercially available qPCR kits for detection and quantification of selected periodontal bacterial species were compared, using 100 clinical samples from patients with untreated periodontitis. The analysis involved two separate comparisons in which kit A (LabOral Diagnostics, The Netherlands) was compared with kit B (Advanced Dental Diagnostics, The Netherlands), and with kit C (OralDent diagnostics, The Netherlands). Analytic procedures for detection and quantification of selected periodontal bacterial species were carried out according to the instructions of the laboratories. Kit A detected target species more often, and absolute numbers of bacterial cells were higher than with kit B. A high degree of similarity was found between the test outcomes by kit A and kit C. All three kits performed satisfactory but small and significant differences exist between kits.