Antimicrobial irrigation of deep pockets to supplement oral hygiene instruction and root debridement. I. Bi-weekly irrigation.

64 sites with probing pocket depth greater than or equal to 6 mm from 11 patients were treated with plaque control instruction and one episode of root planning. Subsequently, selected sites in each patient were irrigated with either chlorhexidine, tetracycline, saline or served as non-irrigated control sites. Irrigation immediately followed instrumentation, and was repeated every 2 weeks for 24 weeks. Healing was monitored at 8, 16, and 24 weeks clinically and at 7, 15, and 23 weeks with subgingival washings for determination of % as well as total number of spirochetes. The following changes were apparent from comparing pooled site means at 24 weeks with pretreatment data: (1) bleeding sites decreased from 62 of 64 sites initially to 22 of 64 at 24 weeks; (2) spirochetes decreased from 34% to 2%; (3) probing pocket depths decreased from 7.6 to 4.7 mm; (4) probing attachment levels showed a gain of 1.2 mm. The improvement of the chlorhexidine and tetracycline irrigated sites was similar to that of the saline irrigated and non-irrigated control sites. Thus, biweekly chlorhexidine, tetracycline or saline irrigation of deep pockets did not appear to augment the effects of non-surgical periodontal therapy.