Periodontal Treatment With an Er:YAG Laser Compared to Scaling and Root Planing. A Controlled Clinical Study

Abstract

An Er:YAG laser may represent a suitable alternative for non-surgical periodontal treatment.

Application of Fluorescence Spectroscopy for Microbial Detection to Enhance Clinical Investigations

“…Fluorescence can be used to identify infected target surfaces and to guide clinicians by providing feedback during ablation. This allows infected sites to be detected and ablated using an autopilot approach with maximum accuracy [51,64].…”

“…The fluorescent yield of a healthy surface decreases much more than the infected region, as excitation wavelength increases in the red spectral region [49,50]. For removing biofilms from the outside of teeth, a pulsed Er:YAG laser has been combined with the DIAGNOdent system and linked to a feedback control system [51]. More recently, this approach has also been used for addressing biofilms and planktonic bacteria inside teeth [37], which is technically much more challenging because of issues of access.…”

Aplicación complementaria de terapia fotodinámica y de la radiación láser de Er:YAG al tratamiento no quirúrgico de la periodontitis crónica: estudio comparativo de sus efectos clínicos, antiinflamatorios y antimicrobianos

“…El cambio más acentuado en la distribución de bacterias se produjo en el primer periodo de tiempo (es decir, a las 4 semanas post-tratamiento) con las tres modalidades realizadas. Estudios previos concuerdan con nuestros resultados tanto en la caso de la aplicación de RAR+ERL (21,22), como tras la aplicación de RAR+TFD (17,19). El número de especies patógenas albergadas en cada localización estudiada varió de 4 especies antes del tratamiento a 1 después de 4 semanas, y a 2-3 especies después de 8 semanas posterapia.…”

Lasers and soft tissue: periodontal therapy

“…4,13,14 Several controlled studies have assessed the use of laser therapy combined with conventional scaling and root planing, although these investigations demonstrated no benefi t or only slightly improved treatment outcomes. [28][29][30][31] Conversely, a study in 2003 by Schwarz et al 32 using an erbium laser indicated that non-surgical periodontal therapy with both an Er:YAG laser plus scaling/root planing (SRP) and an Er:YAG laser alone, led to significant improvements in all clinical parameters investigated; also, the combined treatment Er: YAG laser plus SRP did not seem to additionally improve the outcome of the therapy compared to Er:YAG laser alone.…”