Aim: To assess the importance of achieving a successfully treated stable periodontitis patient status (PPS) during long-term supportive periodontal care (SPC).
Materials and methods: This retrospective cohort study included 100 periodontitis patients, who continued for ≥7.5 years after active periodontal treatment with SPC and were judged as overall adherent. The effect of various predictors on three patient-related outcome parameters was assessed: (1) number of diseased teeth at last SPC, (2) number of teeth lost due to periodontitis, and (3) number of teeth lost due to any reason.
Results: One-fifth of the patients were classified as stable after active periodontal treatment. After a mean follow-up of 10.77 years, 24 patients lost 38 teeth due to periodontitis. An unstable PPS and a higher number of diseased teeth per patient at first SPC, and inadequate oral hygiene levels over time, significantly increased the risk for a higher number of diseased teeth per patient at last SPC and for more lost teeth due to periodontitis. However, high adherence to SPC appeared to mitigate the negative effect of an unstable PPS, especially regarding tooth loss due to periodontitis. Further, tooth loss due to any reason was about 3 times higher than tooth loss due to periodontitis and was affected by a larger number of predictors.
Conclusions: Successfully treated patients with a stable PPS maintained a small number of diseased teeth and barely lost any teeth during long-term SPC compared to patients who did not achieve a stable PPS after active periodontal therapy.
Keywords: adherence; classification; periodontitis; supportive periodontal care; tooth loss.
© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Periodontology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.