Guided tissue regeneration and platelet rich growth factor for the treatment of Grade II furcation defects: A randomized double‑blinded clinical trial ‑ A pilot study

Abstract

Background: The treatment of furcation area defects remained as a challenging issue in periodontal
treatments. Regeneration treatment of furcation defects is the most discussed periodontal treatment.
Although not completely hopeless in prognosis, the presence of the furcation involvement significantly
increases the chance of tooth loss. The current research was conductedeto compare theeadditive
effect of combined guided tissue regeneration (GTR) and platelet‑rich growth factor (PRGF) on
the treatment of furcation bony defects.
Materials and Methods: A randomized, triple‑blinded, split‑mouth study was designed. It included
patients with a moderate to severe chronic periodontitis with bilateral Grade II furcation involvement
of first or second mandibular molars. Each side of mouth was randomly allocated for the treatment
with either Bio‑Gide American Society of Anesthesiologists GTR or a PRGF or PRGF by itself. Plaque
index, gingival index, vertical clinical attachment level, vertical probing depth, recession depth (REC),
horizontal probing depth, fornix to alveolar crest (FAC), fornix to base of defect (FBD), furcation
vertical component and furcation horizontal component (FHC) were recorded. The current research
was conducted to compare the additive effect of combined GTR and PRGF on treatment of furcation
bony defects. Altman’s nomogram, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Friedman test, general linear model,
repeated measures, and paired t‑test were used as statistical analysis in this research. P < 0.05 was
considered statistically significant.
Results: Eight patients were finally enrolled for this study. Overly, general and specific clinical and
furcation parameters were improved except REC that was deteriorated insignificantly and FAC
improved not significantly. Intergroup comparison revealed better improvement of FHC in GTR/
PRGF group (P = 0.02).
Conclusion: A significant improvement in the Grade II furcation defects treated with either GTR
or PRGF/GTR was noticed. Further large‑scale trials are needed to reveal differences of mentioned
treatment in more details.
Key Words: Bioengineering, guided tissue regeneration, platelet-Rich plasma, tooth, furcation