Long-term tooth retention in chronic periodontitis - results after 18 years of a conservative periodontal treatment regimen in a university setting.

AIM: The longitudinal study assessed the risk of tooth loss under a non-regenerative treatment regimen and aimed to identify prognostic factors for tooth loss.

METHODS

Three hundred and fifteen patients (8009 teeth) were examined before (T0) and after active periodontal therapy (APT, T1) as well as after (mean ± SD) 18 ± 6 years of supportive periodontal therapy (SPT, T2). Descriptive statistics and a Cox proportional hazards shared-frailty model were applied.

RESULTS

Overall, 351 and 816 teeth were lost during APT and SPT, respectively, with 0.15 ± 0.17 teeth being lost per patient and year. Seventy-two percentage patients lost 0-3, 24% 4-9 and 4% ≥10 teeth. The proportion of teeth with probing-pocket depths (PPD) >6 mm was 17.2% (T0), 1.6% (T1) and remained stable at 1.7% up to T2. Tooth loss during SPT was significantly increased in older patients [HR (95% CI): 1.04 (1.01-1.07) per year] and smokers [2.62 (1.34-5.14)], with each mm of PPD [1.35 (1.17-1.56)], in multirooted compared with single-rooted teeth [1.86 (1.36-2.56)] and teeth with bone loss [BL; HR up to 23.6 (12.1-45.6) for BL > 70%].

CONCLUSION

The risk of tooth loss was generally low under the provided non-regenerative treatment regimen; a minority of patients were responsible for the majority of teeth lost during SPT.