Methods: 100 teeth in 67 patients (42 male, 25 female) with mean age of 36.02 (range 18 to 66 years) with maxillary and mandibular teeth participated in this study. Three methods were used to evaluate the thickness of the gingival biotype of the failing tooth: Visual, periodontal probing, and direct measurement. Prior to extraction, the gingival biotype was identified as either thick or thin via visual assessment and assessment with a periodontal probe. After tooth extraction, direct measurement of the gingival thickness was performed to nearest 0.1 mm using tension free caliper. The gingival biotype was considered thin if the measurement was ≤1.0 mm and thick if measured >1.0 mm. The assessment methods were compared using MacNamer test at a significance level of α=0.05
Results: The mean gingival thickness obtained from direct measurements was 0.96±0.25 mm. The MacNemer test showed a statistically significant difference when comparing the visual assessment with assessment using a periodontal probe (P=0.001). However, there was no statistically significant difference when comparing the assessment with a periodontal probe and direct measurement (P=0.607).
Conclusions: Assessment with a periodontal probe is an adequately reliable and objective method in evaluating gingival biotype, whereas visual assessment of the gingival biotype by itself is not sufficiently reliable compared to direct measurement.