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Serial Doxycycline and Metronidazole in Prevention of Recurrent Periodontitis in High‐Risk Patients
Author(s) -
Aitken S.,
Birek P.,
Kulkarni G.V.,
Lee W.L.,
McCulloch C.A.G.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of periodontology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.036
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1943-3670
pISSN - 0022-3492
DOI - 10.1902/jop.1992.63.2.87
Subject(s) - metronidazole , doxycycline , medicine , periodontitis , dentistry , antibiotics , microbiology and biotechnology , biology
T he efficacy of Metronidazole and doxycycline in preventing recurrent Periodontitis was studied in 23 patients. After treatment in the previous 7 months with either bimonthly scaling and 3 weeks of systemic doxycycline (11 subjects) or scaling and placebo (12 subjects), patients were monitored for recurrent Periodontitis and were scaled every 2 months. When either a periodontal abscess or > 2 mm loss of gingival attachment was observed, metronidazole was administered (250 mg every 8 hours) for 10 days. In the placebo plus metronidazole group, 5 patients (42%) exhibited recurrent Periodontitis after the metronidazole regimen compared with only one (9%) in the doxycycline plus metronidazole group ( P < 0.096). Subgingival plaque samples at study and healthy control sites were screened for the presence of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Prevotella intermedia, Eikenella corrodens , and Fusobacterium nucleatum by immunofluorescence and for spirochetes using Ryu's stain. Presence/absence analysis of the sum of scores of the 6 individual pathogens demonstrated large reductions ( P < 0.005) in the frequency of detection of pathogens in the former doxycycline compared with the placebo plus metronidazole group at both study and control sites before and one month after metronidazole. By 7 months after metronidazole, there was no detectable difference between groups. These results indicate that prevention of recurrent Periodontitis with metronidazole may be enhanced by previous treatment with doxycycline. J Periodontol 1992; 63:87‐92 .