Clinical Success in Management of Advanced Periodontitis

Book excerpt: General practitioners represent the first line of treatment for their patients who present with advanced periodontitis. Although many believe their best chance of success is to refer these patients to a specialist, the means of effectively treating them are close at hand for most general practitioners. How should these complex infections be controlled? How should the different risk and severity factors involved be handled? How should high-risk sites be controlled? This book answers these questions based on clinical signs and biologic features of the disease and on current data concerning bacterial etiology and new diagnostic methods. Treatment strategies that conform to the new classification criteria of periodontal diseases are tailored to individual cases, and numerous clinical cases illustrate the surprising repair capacities obtained through the use of time-tested maintenance techniques such as plaque control and mechanical, antibiotic, surgical, and implant-based therapies.