Patient related compliance after different treatment techniques for endodontic - periodontal lesions - A single center retrospective study

Abstract

Endo-perio lesions are one of the most common clinical presentations seen in dental clinical which are often misdiagnosed and treated purely endodontically or periodontally. The treatment for such lesions are primarily dependent on skill of dental operator based on adjunctive diagnostic aids such as radiographs, tooth vitality, clinical presentation of localised periodontal pockets. However patient compliance, comfort and chief complaint are often overlooked as the greater need of the individual is kept in mind ahead of his/her comfort levels. There is also a lack of evidence in literature relating patient compliance to treatment done for endo-perio lesions which is the rationale behind the present study. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the immediate postoperative response from clinicians notes after treatment and 1 week after treatment using (i) Primary endodontic management (ii) Primary periodontal management (iii) Combined endo-perio management (iv) extraction of the same tooth over a period 9 months in a single centered university setting. Patient records from a dental college in Chennai were used for the inclusion of patients from 1st June 2019 till 1st March 2020 into the study. Patients with localised chronic periodontitis with a CAL of 5mm or greater confirmed using adjunctive aids like standardised radiographs, cold vitality testing were included in the study. Patient postoperative comfort and compliance were assessed immediately after treatment and 1 week after treatment recorded from clinician's notes. It was found that within the limitation of this study, maximal patient compliance was seen when endo-perio lesions were treated using root canal treatment as well as flap surgery as per clinicians records which was clinically significant but statistically insignificant (p<0.05).