Assessment of periodontal tissues damping characteristics: current concepts and clinical trials.

The reproducibility of an electronic device for the assessment of periodontal tissues damping characteristics was judged by evaluating the inter-examiner, inter-device and day to day variations of the measurements (PTVs). Nine young periodontally healthy volunteers were examined by two examiners (EX-1 and EX-2) and two devices (D-1 and D-2) in the following sequence: EX-1 D-1, EX-2 D-1, EX-1 D-2, and EX-2 D-2. PTVs were obtained at 5 different occasions during the same day. In some instances examiner 2 measured higher scores than examiner 1 with both devices. This difference was statistically significant (P = 0.05), if the total of 900 measurements was considered. The measurements of device 2 were approximately 0.5 PTV units higher, also reaching a statistical significance (P = 0.05). This difference is of limited clinical significance. The day to day variation was evaluated by comparing the scores obtained at 8 a.m. with the ones at the four other periods. The lowest scores were measured at 8 a.m. Only the 11 a.m. and the 2 p.m. measurements differed significantly. The effect of hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle and of smoking habits on PTVs were also evaluated. Ten female periodontally healthy volunteers were examined three times a week, during a period of two menstrual cycles. No significant PTV changes were found during the menstrual cycle. The effect of the smoking habit on PTVs was tested on 23 periodontally healthy patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)