PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

A D Haffajee

Publications and source records attributed to A D Haffajee.

102 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

The relationship between attachment level loss and alveolar bone loss.

Standardized radiographs and repeated periodontal probe measurements were made on 22 untreated subjects with destructive periodontal disease monitored for 1 year. Radiographs of selected sites were taken at 0, 6 and 12 months. Measurements of attachment level were made monthly. Radiographic measurements were made on 7X magnified projected images. Alveolar bone height from the CEJ was computed by multiplying the average length of the root times the measured ratio of CEJ to alveolar bone over CEJ to root tip. Each radiograph was measured twice by 2 investigators. Sites were excluded as having indistinct anatomical landmarks in which the standard deviation of the 4 measurements exceeded 0.16 mm, the measurement error for repeat determination of bone height on high quality radiographic images. A 3 sigma critical value for significant bone loss was selected as 0.48 mm. Changes in attachment level were computed for the intervals preceding and during the 6-12 month radiographic measurement period. Based on these critical values, 6.1% of the 231 radiographed sites showed significant bone loss. Similarly, 5.7% of the 1155 probed sites showed significant attachment loss. However, none of the sites with significant bone loss exhibited significant attachment loss over the same time period. In general, significant attachment loss preceded bone loss by 6 to 8 months. At 4 mm, attachment loss was found to predict subsequent bone loss with a true positive ratio of 60% and a false positive ratio of 5%, indicating a high degree of predictive discrimination. These observations indicate that attachment loss precedes radiographic evidence of crestal alveolar bone loss during periods of periodontal disease activity.

Alveolar Process↗
PubMed1984

Long-term effect of surgical/non-surgical treatment of periodontal disease.

The present investigation describes the effect of periodontal therapy in a group of patients who, following active treatment, were monitored over a 5-year period. One aim of the study was to analyze the rôle played by the patients' self-performed plaque control in preventing recurrent periodontitis. In addition, probing depth and attachment level alterations were studied separately for sites with initial probing depths of greater than or equal to 4 mm which were treated initially by either surgical or non-surgical procedures. Following active treatment (surgical/non-surgical), the patients were maintained on a plaque control regimen for 6 months, which included professional tooth cleaning once every 2 weeks. During the subsequent 18 months, the interval between the recall appointments was extended to 12 weeks and included prophylaxis as well as oral hygiene instruction. Following the 24-month examination, the interval between the recall appointments was further extended, now to 4-6 months. In addition, the maintenance program was restricted to oral hygiene instruction and professional, supragingival tooth cleaning, but further subgingival instrumentation was avoided. Clinical examinations including assessments of the oral hygiene, the gingival conditions, the probing depths and the attachment levels were performed at Baseline and after 24 and 60 months after completion of active therapy. Assessments of plaque and gingivitis were repeated annually. The results of the examinations showed that the patients' standard of self-maintained oral hygiene had a decisive influence on the long-term effect of treatment. Patients who during the 5 years of monitoring consistently had a high frequency of plaque-free tooth surfaces showed little evidence of recurrent periodontal disease, while patients who had a low frequency of plaque-free tooth surfaces had a high frequency of sites showing additional loss of attachment. The present findings demonstrated that sites with an initial pocket depth exceeding 3 mm responded equally well to non-surgical and surgical treatments. This statement is based on probing depth and attachment level data from sites which were free of plaque at the 6-, 12-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 60-month reexaminations. It is suggested that the critical determinant in periodontal therapy is not the technique (surgical or non-surgical) that is used for the elimination of the subgingival infection, but the quality of the debridement of the root surface.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Comparison of statistical methods of analysis of data from clinical periodontal trials.

Data from clinical trials have commonly been analyzed by seeking differences between means of clinical measurements in groups treated in different ways. Such differences may be difficult to interpret clinically and fail to impart meaningful information to the research worker or clinician. Attachment level measurements taken from a group of well-maintained patients, initially treated by either scaling or Widman flap surgery, were artificially manipulated to impose known changes on the scaled group. Data from individual sites were analyzed by the t-test and Mann-Whitney test; and frequency distributions by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov 2-sample test and ridit analysis. Extreme changes were sought by the Moses test for extreme reactions and by creating contingency tables in which changes below arbitrary thresholds of change were eliminated. Examination of the results indicated that the mean was sensitive to small changes in large numbers of sites but insensitive to major changes in a smaller number of sites. Since the latter changes may be of significance to the research worker and clinician, it is recommended that the mean (or median values) be supplemented with the presentation of the frequency distribution of changes and an analysis seeking large changes in few sites.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed1983

Comparison of different data analyses for detecting changes in attachment level.

The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate methods to detect periods of destructive periodontal disease activity in individual sites using pairs of repeated attachment level measurements. Attachment level measurements were made at 6 sites on every tooth in 22 individuals with radiographic evidence of periodontal destruction, and were repeated within 7 days. A total of 3414 sites were monitored at 2-month intervals for approximately 1 year. 3 analytical procedures were used to test for significant changes in attachment level. For regression analysis, a linear least squares fit function of time in days vs attachment level was computed for each site and the slope tested for difference from 0. Running medians of 3 were used to smooth attachment level measurements and changes greater than 2 mm in the smoothed curves were considered significant. By the tolerance method, differences between pairs of attachment level measurements were used to compare the mean change and the site specific variability of that change. The proportion of specific agreement (Ps) for breaking down sites was highest between the tolerance and running median methods (Ps = 0.63). Overall agreement (kappa), which included sites which showed "loss", "gain", and no change was 0.56. By regression analysis (P less than 0.01), 175 sites were identified as having significant attachment loss and 79 sites were identified as improving. By running medians these figures were 90 and 50, and by tolerance 94 and 40, respectively. Each of the 3 methods had certain advantages. Regression analysis was particularly sensitive to gradual changes in slope whereas the running median method detected abrupt changes in attachment level. The tolerance method was well suited to detecting changes over a short period of time. The tolerance and running median methods detected more breaking down sites on the molars and lower incisors and on interproximal surfaces; whereas regression analysis did not show these differences.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Progression of periodontal disease in adult subjects in the absence of periodontal therapy.

Progression of periodontal disease in adult subjects in the absence of periodontal therapy was monitored in 2 populations. One group of 64 Swedish subjects (mean age 40.5 years at entry) with mild to moderate periodontal attachment loss was monitored for attachment level changes at baseline, 3 and 6 years. A second group of 36 Americans (mean age 34.3 years at entry) with advanced destructive periodontal disease was monitored for attachment level changes at baseline and 1 year. Of 4101 sites examined at baseline and at 3 years in the Swedish subjects, only 158 sites (3.9%) showed attachment loss of more than 2 mm. No measurable change was found in 1440 sites (35.1%). Of 4097 sites examined at 3 and 6 years, 67 sites (1.6%) showed attachment loss greater than 2 mm; 57.4% of sites showed no measurable change; and 19 sites (0.5%) showed a decrease in probeable attachment level of more than 2 mm. During the 6-year interval, 523 sites (11.6%) showed attachment loss of more than 2 mm; 20% of sites showed no measurable change and 11 sites (0.2%) showed more than 2 mm of attachment "gain". Approximately 50% of sites that showed no measurable change in the first 3-year period showed loss in the next 3 years. In contrast, of the sites which showed some level of attachment loss in the first period, approximately 2/3 showed no loss in the second monitoring period. Of 3210 sites monitored in the American subjects, 102 sites (3.2%) exhibited more than 2 mm of additional attachment loss; 26% of sites showed no measurable change and 138 sites (4.3%) showed a decrease in probeable attachment level of more than 2 mm. The association between attachment level changes and initial attachment level (baseline) was examined by regression analysis. The slopes of the regression lines for both populations were not consistent with a hypothesis that sites with more advanced attachment loss are more prone to additional destruction, in the absence of treatment, than sites with initially less attachment loss. In the American group, some sites with initially advanced attachment loss, exhibited a decrease in probing attachment level.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

An approach to the definition of periodontal disease syndromes by cluster analysis.

Clinical syndromes of 22 untreated patients with advanced destructive periodontal disease were analyzed using cluster analysis. Clinical characteristics coded for each patient included age, sex, measures of gingival inflammation, plaque, suppuration, pocket depth, attachment level, extent and pattern of bone loss, rate of change in pocket depth, and correlation coefficients between certain clinical measurements. Microbiologic features included darkfield enumeration of 10 morphologically distinct forms of organisms which were removed from the three sites showing the most advanced destruction in each patient, as well as viable counts of specific microbial groups from the same teeth using elective and selective media. Serum antibody levels were determined by the ELISA technique to 13 species of subgingival microorganisms. The Gower coefficient was used to estimate similarity between patients and clusters were formed using an average unweighted linkage sort. Three distinct patient clusters were observed with greater than 70% average intra-cluster similarity. One subject did not fall into any of the patient clusters. The features which defined and differentiated the clusters were found to include age of subject, extent and patterns of bone loss, percent of sites showing change in pocket depth and attachment level, percent of small motile rods, intermediate spirochetes and fusiforms and serum IgG levels against Bacteroides gingivalis, Selenomonas sputigena and a Wolinella strain.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Patterns of progression and regression of advanced destructive periodontal disease.

Attachment level at two sites on each tooth in 22 untreated subjects with existing periodontal pockets was measured every month for 1 year. Regression analysis was then applied to the data from each periodontal site to determine if statistically significant trends in attachment level change could be detected. 82.8% of the sites monitored did not significantly change during the year. 5.7% of the sites became significantly deeper and 11.5% of the sites became significantly shallower (P less than 0.01) during the period. Among those sites in which pocket depth increased, approximately half exhibited a cyclic deepening followed by spontaneous recovery to their original depth. In 15 of the subjects, sites were found which became significantly deeper while other sites within the same subject became significantly shallower. In six subjects, who might be considered to have an arrested form of periodontal disease, virtually no sites became deeper during the monitoring period whereas 11-36% of their sites became significantly shallower. The results of this investigation suggest that a dynamic condition of disease exacerbation and remission as well as periods of inactivity may be characteristic of periodontal disease.

Adolescent↗