Effects of periodontal endoscopy on the treatment of periodontitis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: For this systematic review, the authors evaluated and synthesized the available scientific evidence related to the effects of periodontal endoscopy on the treatment of periodontitis.

METHODS: The authors searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Scientific Journals database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Chinese Medicine Premier's Wanfang database for articles about periodontal endoscopy that were published through January 2017. The authors considered the percentage of residual calculus, average treatment time, bleeding on probing (BOP), gingival inflammation (GI), and probing depth (PD) as outcome measures. The authors extracted data and performed meta-analyses for groups of articles for which it was appropriate.

RESULTS: The authors identified 8 articles as being suitable for this systematic review. The investigators of 3 studies reported results related to BOP and GI that revealed some advantages of periodontal endoscopy over traditional scaling and root planing (SRP). The investigators of 4 studies explored PD and found no difference between periodontal endoscopy and traditional SRP. The authors could not perform meta-analyses on the study results related to BOP, GI, or PD. The percentage of residual calculus after periodontal endoscope-aided debridement was significantly less than the percentage of residual calculus after traditional SRP (mean difference, -3.18; 95% confidence interval, -4.86 to -1.49; P = .002; heterogeneity I2  = 74%). The authors found that periodontal endoscopy took significantly more time than traditional SRP (mean difference, 6.01 minutes; 95% confidence interval, 4.23 to 7.8; P < .00001; heterogeneity I2  = 0%).

CONCLUSIONS AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Periodontal endoscopy may provide additional benefits for calculus removal compared with traditional SRP, although it could take more time to perform. With respect to BOP, GI, and PD, the authors found no sufficient evidence to support the difference between the use of periodontal endoscopy and traditional SRP. The authors concluded that additional scientific research is required to assess the effects of periodontal endoscopy on the treatment of periodontitis.