The periodontal health of post-orthodontic subjects

It has been hypothesised that orthodontic treatment is an important factor in the aetiology of periodontal disease. To test this hypothesis it was desirable to match the control group and the study group on dental awareness, plaque score and sulcus bleeding as these factors may mask the effects of orthodontic treatment. In the present investigation the study group comprised 83 subjects with an average age of 21.1 years while the control group comprised 33 subjects with an average age of 19.7 years. Intra-examiner and inter-examiner variability were tested. Differences between examiners in measuring pocket depths never exceeded one millimetre.

Results show that mean pockets depths were marginally but consistently higher in the study group than in the control group when matched for dental awareness, plaque scores and sulcus bleeding. However, in practical terms, the differences between the groups were small and should be interpreted with caution in view of the age difference between the groups. It was found that increased pocket depths at extraction sites were not a significant aspect of orthodontically treated patients.