Periodontal healing after non-surgical therapy with a modified sonic scaler:: a controlled clinical trial

Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the clinical and microbiological healing outcomes following non-surgical periodontal therapy using a modified sonic scaler system versus scaling and root planing (S/RP) with hand instruments. Material and Methods: The study comprised 20 chronic periodontitis patients. Using a split-mouth design, both treatment modalities were randomly applied to one quadrant of the upper and lower jaws. Clinical and microbiological parameters were assessed at baseline, 4 weeks, and 6 months after treatment. Furthermore, post-operative hypersensitivity was investigated. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test (alpha=0.05) was used for statistical analysis. Results: With both therapy methods, periodontal conditions showed statistically significant clinical and microbiological improvements after 4 weeks and 6 months. Hypersensitive teeth were found only 4 weeks after S/RP. Besides a significantly better bleeding on probing reduction in deep S/RP sites and less time required for root instrumentation by the sonic scaler, no other clinical and microbiological parameters revealed significant differences between sites treated with the sonic scaler or S/RP. Conclusion: The sonic scaler system and S/RP seem to provide similarly favourable periodontal healing results, although in deep pockets S/RP appeared to achieve a better resolution of inflammation.