Assessment of the WHO partial recording approach in identification of individuals highly susceptible to periodontitis

The use of the WHO partial recording approach (CPITN) in the identification of 20-30-yr-old individuals with high past or present susceptibility to periodontitis was investigated in two studies in a factory population. Comparison with a traditional assessment in 149 subjects indicated that the probing depths and bleeding scores of the partial recording sites correlated well with the other sites which were less prone to periodontal disease than the CPITN sites, and that all the 23 subjects with deep pockets would have been identified by the use of the CPITN sites alone. However, when 75 of the subjects were re-examined using the partial recording sites, assessment of loss of clinical attachment levels indicated that only 16 of the 33 subjects who had loss of 2 mm or more clinical attachment at two or more sites had deep pockets, indicating that in this group assessment using pocket depth measurement alone seriously underestimated the proportion of individuals with a high past or present susceptibility to periodontitis.