A CLINICAL STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF DIFFERENT TREATMENT MODALITIES ON IMPROVING THE CLINICAL OUTCOMES IN CHRONIC PERIODONTITIS PATIENTS

Background: Periodontal disease is one of the two main and most prevalent oral diseases all over the world. Treatment strategies are diverse. To date, scaling and root planing (SRP) is still the gold standard non-surgical therapy for periodontitis. Systemically administered antibiotics can be used as an adjunct to SRP to improve the treatment outcome of periodontitis. Purpose: To compare clinical outcome of systemically administered doxycycline versus combination of amoxicillin and metronidazole as an adjunct to SRP in the management of chronic periodontitis patients. Methods: This study was conducted on forty-two moderate to severe generalized chronic periodontitis patients who received non-surgical periodontal therapy. Following SRP, patients were randomly allocated to one of the following groups; group (I) received Doxycycline (loading dose 200 mg and maintenance dose 100 mg/day) for fifteen days, group (II) received a combination therapy of amoxicillin and metronidazole (750 mg/day) for eight days and group III (control group) which was treated by SRP without administration of systemic antibiotic therapy. The periodontal parameters; Plaque index (PI), Gingival index (GI), Probing depth (PD) and Clinical attachment level (CAL) were examined for the assessment of the clinical outcome. Results: This study revealed that combination of amoxicillin and metronidazole resulted in significant reduction in PD and significant gain in CAL. Conclusion: The combination of Amoxicillin and Metronidazole at a dose of 750 mg/day for eight days had a significant effect on enhancing the clinical outcome of chronic periodontitis patients.