Meta-analysis for identifying the best method for chronic periodontitis therap

Abstract

Periodontitis is a multifactorial inflammatory disease, caused by dental biofilm and other local andsystemic factors. Chronic periodontitis is a more prevalent type of periodontitis in the population. For their treatment,traditional mechanical methods as scaling and root planning (SRP) are applied. At present newer ones, such asantimicrobial, bactericidal and laser, are used in combination with traditional method. Published clinical trial paperspresent conflicting results about the best therapy for chronic periodontitis, which is why it is necessary to determinethe evidence on this matter. Meta-analysis is a form of research synthesis that allows researchers to quantitativelyintegrate the results from a set of studies on the same issue. The aim of this work was applied meta-analysis methodon clinical trial studies in order to identify the best method to improve clinical outcomes in the therapy of chronicperiodontitis. This study was done according PRISMA guidelines. It was conducted a meta-analysis of studies ofrandomized clinical trials from the MEDLINE, Scielo and Cochrane databases, in which the investigators evaluated,the Plaque Index (PI), Bleending Index (BI), the Probing Depth (PD) and Clinical Attachment Loss (CAL) in test groupsand in control groups of adult patients, between July 30th 2016 and July 30th 2017. Meta-analysis was performedusing Standardized Mean Difference (SMD). The heterogeneity was investigated by the Q-test and the I2 statistic. Themeta and metafor packages of R software 3.4.3 (2017) was used. The measurements Clinical Attachment Loss,Probing Depth, Bleeding Index and Plaque Index showed a high heterogeneity. The subgroup analysis was used forinvestigating whether studied characteristics may explain heterogeneity. Therefore the studies were groupedaccording to the type of treatment that the patients received (physics or bactericide methods), thus the heterogeneityof some variables was diminished. Conclusion: the PI improved by traditional method SRP meanwhile BI improvedwith physic methods.