Clinical Prognostic Factors for Outcome of Treatment of Aggressive Periodontitis

Objectives: As part of a larger study of prognostic factors in the treatment of Aggressive Periodontitis (AgP), the aim of the study reported here was to investigate the association of clinical parameters on outcome of nonsurgical treament. Methods: 83 Patients with generalised Aggressive Periodontitis received a standardised course of nonsurgical treatment consisting of 4 visits of deep scaling and OHI after full clinical assessment. 10 weeks postoperatively patients were reassessed to determine treatment responses. Responding sites were classified as those showing at least 2mm pocket depth reduction. Non-responding sites showed no PD reduction. Patient outcomes were dichotomised by ranking the percentage of non-responding sites for each patient. Non-responding patients were classified as those contributing up to 50 % of the cumulative total of non-responding sites. Results: The treatment resulted in a mean pocket depth reduction of 1.67 mm. Plaque scores reduced from 50% to 24%, and bleeding scores from 73% to 39%. 41% of deep sites were classified as responding sites ; 21.9% of the deep sites were classified as non-responding. The number of sites with pocket depth of greater than 5 mm was reduced from 2,193 to 833 sites, a reduction of 62%. There was no association between site-specific outcome and plaque, bleeding, initial pocket depth or single rooted vs multi-rooted teeth. 19 of the patients were classified as non-responding patients. There was no difference in outcome of patients by age, severity of disease or plaque levels. However 53% of non-responding patients were smokers compared to only 21% of responders. Consistent with this, bleeding scores were higher in responding patients than in non-responders. Conclusions: These data demonstrate the general efficacy of nonsurgical treatment for AgP and suggest that clinical factors have poor prognostic utility in determining treatment outcome.