Effectiveness of Gingival Retraction Methods: A Systematic Review

Objectives: The aim of this systematic review was to assess the effectiveness of different gingival retraction methods in terms of the amount of gingival retraction achieved and changes observed in various clinical parameters e.g. Gingival Index (GI), Plaque Index (PI), Probing depth (PD) and Clinical attachment level (CAL).
Methods: Data sources included three major databases i.e. PubMed, CINAHL plus(Ebsco),COCHRANE along with hand search. Search was made using the key terms in different permutations of gingival retraction* AND displacement method* OR technique* OR agents OR material* OR medicament*. The initial search results yielded 142 articles which were narrowed down to final 10 articles after a strict eligibility of including clinical trials or experimental studies on gingival retraction methods with the amount of tooth structure gained and assessment of clinical parameters as the outcomes conducted on human permanent teeth only.
Results: The total number of teeth assessed in the 10 selected studies were 400. Gingival retraction was measured in 6/10 studies whereas the clinical parameters were assessed in 5/10 studies. The results were highly heterogeneous with regards to the outcome variables.
Conclusions: No method seemed to be significantly superior to the other in terms of gingival retraction achieved. Clinical parameters such as Plaque Index (PI), Probing Depth (PD), Clinical Attachment Level (CAL), Bleeding on Probing (BOP) etc. were not significantly affected with gingival retraction. Except for Gingival Index (Gingival Index), this was significantly altered in some studies.