Role of Photodynamic Therapy in Non-Surgical Periodontal Treatment

This study aimed to provide an overview about the efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) as an adjunct to scaling and root planing (SRP) versus SRP alone in non-surgical periodontal therapy.

Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) with a minimum duration of 3 months, evaluating PDT+SRP versus SRP alone in non-surgical periodontal treatment of patients diagnosed with aggressive or chronic periodontitis who had at least 2 teeth with probing depth (PD) ≥4 mm, and in vitro studies evaluating the effect of adjunctive PDT on proliferation or viability of human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs) were included. An electronic search of the literature was carried out mainly through PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google scholar for relevant English articles published from January 2011 to January 2021 using the following keywords: "photodynamic therapy" and “periodontitis" or “periodontal diseases”.

Twelve articles were reviewed in this study. Analysis of the clinical attachment level (CAL), PD, gingival index (GI), plaque index (PI), bleeding on probing (BOP) and microbiological counts of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (A. actinomycetemcomitans) and Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) demonstrated variable outcomes. Five articles revealed significant improvement of clinical parameters in the PDT groups compared with the control group (P<0.05); five studies reported significant improvement of CAL (P<0.05). However, three studies found no significant difference between PDT and control groups in terms of CAL (P>0.05).

PDT+SRP could help improve the periodontal parameters, compared with SRP alone. Further studies are required to reach a stronger conclusion regarding the superiority of one over the other.