Comparative evaluation of surgical and conservative treatment modalities of juvenile periodontitis patients.

In a comparative evaluation of the effectiveness of two treatment modalities for juvenile periodontitis, 12 patients aged between 15 years and 23 years were recruited into a six months longitudinal study. The split mouth design was used such that one side (upper and lower quadrants) received conservative treatment. Each side was randomly assigned one of the two treatment modalities. Standardized probing attachment level (PAL) measurement and degree of mobility of the teeth were taken at recruitment (baseline), one, three and six months postoperation. Tetracycline capsules 250mg, 6 hourly, was administered for 2 weeks at baseline and at 3 months follow-up. Initial thorough scaling and polishing of the whole mouth was done for all the patients. At follow-up, there were marked improvements seen with both treatment modalities. The mean probing depth for surgical treatment (3.57mm +/- 0.78) was significantly lower than that of conservative treatment (4.11mm +/- 0.74) P < 0.05 at 3 months. Also, this significant difference continued up to 6 months (2.70mm +/- 0.57, 3.55mm +/- 0.65; P < 0.05 ). For the degree of mobility, significant difference was only evident at 6 months of follow-up (0.48 +/- 0.29, 0.98 +/- 0.523; P < 0.05 ) for surgical treatment and conservative treatment respectively. It was therefore concluded that surgical debridement with systemic administration of tetracycline is more effective than the conservative technique in the treatment of juvenile periodontitis, although both gave improvement.