Guided tissue regeneration using a collagen membrane in chronic adult and rapidly progressive periodontitis patients in the treatment of 3-wall intrabony defects.

This study, confined to non-smokers, evaluated guided tissue regeneration using a diphenylphosphorylazide-cross-linked bovine type I collagen membrane in deep 3-wall intrabony defects in 52 adult periodontitis (AP) and 16-rapidly progressive periodontitis (RPP) patients, previously treated for the acute phase of the disease, no more than one defect being randomly selected for each patient. Before surgery and 6 months after surgery, plaque (PI) and sulcus bleeding (SBI) indices, as well as probing pocket depths (PPD), gingival margin locations (GML) and probing attachment levels (PAL) were recorded. During the post-surgical period, the membranes were very well tolerated in all patients and PI and SBI were kept at a low level. 6 months post-surgical, there was a significant gain in PAL (3.6 mm for AP; 2.6 mm for RPP) and reduction in PPD (5.5 mm for AP; 4.1 mm for RPP) for both groups of patients (p < 0.05). However, neither the change in GML (1.9 mm for AP; 1.5 mm for RPP), nor PPD or PAL yielded a statistically significant difference between AP and RPP patients. The results of this study demonstrated that the treatment of deep 3-wall intrabony defects with a diphenylphosphorylazide-cross-linked collagen membrane in both AP and RPP patients during the quiescent phase of the disease is a treatment modality where the conquences are predictable. However, longer observation periods are necessary to evaluate the stability of the improvements obtained for the 2 groups of patients and the differences between them.