Periodontal Diseases —A Manual of Diagnosis, Treatment, and Maintenance

  • H. R. Preus &
  • L. Laurell
Surrey: Quintessence, 2003 price £33, pp89 ISBN 1850970726 | ISBN: 1-850-97072-6

Contrary to expectations, considering its weighty title, this is a very short and very personal book written by two practising and teaching periodontists of great experience. It contains a strategy for the management of people with periodontal diseases and declares itself, in the preface, to be not so much a textbook, but rather a manual for the interested clinician. In this aim, at least, the book succeeds in that it sets down the authors' philosophy with no references whatsoever, not even any mentioned in the text. The omission of even a few key references, in my view, deprives the book of much of its practical significance, and almost all of its authority.

There are 7 chapters, the longest being devoted to mechanical treatment, including surgery, and the chapter on the use of antibiotics separates this chapter from that on advanced surgery. There are also chapters dealing with diagnosis, risk factors, and maintenance, and a useful chapter at the end on treatment strategies.

The authors make it clear that cooperation with a periodontist is essential for a general practitioner and also emphasizes the importance of realising that there are several periodontal diseases. The correct identification of the patient's disease enables a reasoned prognosis and effective treatment. There is a thoughtful section on the motivation of patients, a subject so important and yet, strangely very little discussed nowadays.

The text is littered with irritating typographical errors and grammatical aberrations and the reader really does not need to know that modified mattress sutures are 'traditionally used to line the buttonholes in Norwegian male traditional folk suites' (sic) particularly in a book cut to the bone to eliminate non-essential information.

There is also over one page devoted to bacterial resistance to antibiotics, yet no consideration of the role and scope of treatment planning for periodontal patients.

The persistent use of the quaint term 'Roentgenograms' does little to inspire confidence in the modernity of the authors' approach.

These matters of style unfortunately detract from what is otherwise a useful overview of the treatment of periodontal diseases today. With a little more vigorous editing, it could perhaps have been recommended as a primer for the practising dentist and hygienist.