Evidence Hub

Repeated local delivery of hyaluronic acid gel as adjunctive treatment of residual pockets in periodontitis patients undergoing supportive periodontal care. A randomized controlled clinical trial

K. Bertl, Stefania Vlachou, N. Pandis, A. Zampelis, A. Stavropoulos

Clinical Oral Investigations, 2024

15 citations

Abstract

To assess the effect of hyaluronic acid (HyA) application as adjunct to re-instrumentation of residual pockets in patients undergoing regular supportive periodontal care (SPC). Chronic periodontitis patients (stage III and IV, grade B and C) with 4 interproximal residual pockets were randomly assigned to the test (HyA gel) or control (saline) group. After subgingival instrumentation, test or control substance was applied subgingivally, then daily supragingivally for 3 months, and if required a second time after subgingival re-instrumentation after 3 months. Clinical and patient reported outcome parameters were recorded every 3 months for 12 months. Pocket closure [probing pocket depth (PPD) ≤ 4mm with absence of bleeding on probing (BoP) at PPD = 4mm] was the main outcome parameter. Fifty-six patients (221 experimental sites) were analysed. Pocket closure was achieved in 56.8 and 46.6% of the experimental sites in the test and control group, respectively (p > 0.05), while median PPD and PPD distribution ( 5mm) differed significantly between groups in favour of the test group, at 12 months. Further, significantly fewer sites in the HyA group required re-instrumentation at 3 months, and sites in the HyA group showed a tendency for lower odds to remain diseased compared to the control group (OR 0.48, 95%CI 0.22–1.06). The odds for a site to remain diseased after 12 months increased significantly in the presence of plaque (OR 7.94, 95%CI 4.12–15.28), but in general, decreased…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free