Periodontal healing after scaling and root planing with the Kavo Sonicflex and Titan-S sonic scalers.

Several types of air turbine scalers have recently been introduced as alternatives to hand instruments and ultrasonic devices in periodontal therapy. Whereas differences in scaling and root planing efficiencies have been demonstrated in vitro between different types of sonic scalers (Lie & Leknes 1985), periodontal healing after instrumentation with the Titan-S sonic scaler, Cavitron ultra sonic scalers and hand instruments has shown to be similar (Gellini et al. 1986, Loos et al. 1987, Laurell & Pettersson 1988). This split mouth designed study compared periodontal healing expressed as reduction in number of sites with probing depths of 4 mm or deeper and bleeding on probing following scaling and root planing with the Sonicflex and the Titan-S sonic scalers. Fifteen patients with moderately advanced periodontitis participated in the study. In each patient one side of the dentition was treated with the Sonicflex and the other with the Titan-S sonic scalers. Reexaminations performed three and seven months after treatment showed significant and similar reductions in number of sites with probing depths of greater than or equal to 4 mm and bleeding scores for the two sides.