Retention of hopeless teeth: the effect on the adjacent proximal bone following periodontal surgery

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by Dr Trevor Watts.

Abstract

Hopeless teeth may be retained long-term with no adverse effect.

Main

Machtei EE, Hirsch I J Periodontol 2007; 78: 2246–2252

Teeth evaluated as periodontally hopeless (HT) are commonly extracted because of postulated further attachment loss. Studies disagree on whether extraction is a valid treatment. In this retrospective study, radiographs were examined for 57 retained HT in 50 subjects and 53 extracted HT in 43 subjects treated from 1990 to 2003. All decisions on whether to extract HT had been made by the patients.

Mean follow-up was 4.4 yrs (range 2–13). Retained HT gained a mean 0.8 mm bone (P < 0.01) and adjacent mesial and distal teeth, 0.3 mm. Where HT had been extracted, adjacent mesial teeth gained 0.7 mm bone, and distal teeth, 1.1 mm (no significant differences from teeth adjacent to retained HT).