Reproducibility of automated periodontal probing around teeth and osseointegrated oral implants

Three different probing devices (Audio-Probe(R), Florida-Probe(R), Peri-Probe(R)) were tested in order to determine the clinical probing depth (CPD) around clinically stable oral implants and their homologous teeth and to evaluate their reproducibility. In all 37 patients, in the age range of 24-80 years, who had undergone periodontal therapy and placement of 1 or more oral implants (ITI(R)), were selected for the study. The CPD was determined on 75 oral implants in total and at 4 sites of both the implants and the control teeth at 3 visits, each 1 week apart. At the Ist visit, the Florida-Probeo and the Audio-Probe(R) were used. At the 2nd visit, the Florida-Probe(R) and the Peri-Probe(R) and, at the 3rd visit, again, the Florida-Probe(R) and the Audio-Probe(R) were used, At each visit bleeding on probing (BOP) was registered. A statistically significant (P<0.05) difference between the mean scores of implant and tooth sites was found showing slightly higher values for implant sites. A tendency for the deeper pockets to bleed more frequent ly than the shallow pockets was observed. The comparisons of differences of the readings of the Audio-Probe(R) on 2 different occasions were smaller than for the Florida-Probe(R). However, comparisons between 2 different probes showed significantly greater measurement errors than when comparing the probes alone. There was a tendency for the Peri-Probe(R) to yield the highest and the Audio-Probe(R) the lowest values in inflamed sites. It was concluded that all 3 probing devices appeared to have adequate reproducibility both around teeth and oral implants. For clinical use in daily practice, the Audio-Probe(R) was found to be the most simple device with the highest reproducibility.