Periodontal Regeneration With or Without Limited Orthodontics for the Treatment of 2‐ or 3‐Wall Infrabony Defects

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

BACKGROUND: Limited orthodontics are shown to be effective in the correction of infrabony defects. Studies have also demonstrated the efficacy of using enamel matrix derivative (EMD) with demineralized freeze-dried bone allograft (DFDBA) to treat infrabony defects. This study aims to compare the clinical efficacy of limited orthodontics combined with EMD/DFDBA in the treatment of 2- or 3-wall infrabony defects. METHODS: A randomized, parallel clinical trial was conducted in a private periodontal practice (Tokyo, Japan) between April 2004 and October 2008. Treatment period was 1 year with a 1-year follow-up. Forty-seven randomized patients, mean age of 53 ± 10.7 years, were allocated into two intervention groups: ortho/EMD/DFDBA (n = 24) and EMD/DFDBA (n = 23). Each patient had either a 2- or 3-wall infrabony defect of ≥6 mm deep. Probing depth and clinical attachment level were measured at baseline and 1 year. The primary outcome measure was absolute change in probing depth and clinical attachment level from baseline to 1-year follow-up. The secondary outcome measure was absolute change in open probing attachment level gain and percentage defect resolution from baseline to 6-month reentry surgery. Infrabony defects were surgically treated with EMD and DFDBA 4 weeks before application of orthodontic extrusive forces. Reentry surgeries were performed at 6 months after initial surgery. RESULTS: Forty-seven patients were analyzed. Both treatment groups showed a significant improvement from baseline with no significant difference between the groups except for the 2-wall defects. The ortho/EMD/DFDBA group had statistically significant open probing attachment level gain (95% confidence level, 3.18 to 4.36; P = 0.036) compared to the EMD/DFDBA group (95% confidence level, 2.26 to 3.24) in 2-wall defects. CONCLUSION: Although both treatment modalities were effective in managing 2- or 3-wall infrabony defects, limited orthodontics provided an additional benefit to EMD/DFDBA in 2-wall defects.