Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy using diode laser activated indocyanine green as an adjunct in the treatment of chronic periodontitis: A randomized clinical trial

- ICG with an 810 nm diode laser in combination with SRP led to complete resolution of inflammation and significant reduction in periodontal pocket.
- aPDT in combination with conventional SRP led to significant improvements in BOP, PPD and FMBS over SRP alone.
- The significant reduction in clinical signs of inflammation with the significant PPD reduction can be achieved by SRP in combination with aPDT in patients with chronic periodontitis.

IntroductionClinical studies have shown the usefulness of antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) as an adjunctive in periodontal therapy. These studies did not utilize indocyanine green (ICG) as a recently introduced photosensitizer. The aim of this study was to perform a full-mouth double-blind randomized controlled clinical study to test the efficacy of adjunctive aPDT with ICG compared with scaling and root planing (SRP) alone in chronic periodontitis treatment.Materials and methodsFifty patients were selected for this study. All patients received SRP. Then, each patient was randomly assigned to either the test group (aPDT + SRP) or the control group (SRP). aPDT was performed with a diode laser (wavelength: 810 nm, power: 200 mW) and ICG as photosensitizer. The adjunctive procedure was repeated after 7, 17 and 27 days. The clinical parameters including bleeding on probing (BOP), clinical attachment loss (CAL), plaque index (PI), probing pocket depth (PPD), full mouth plaque score (FMPS) and full mouth bleeding score (FMBS) were measured at baseline and after 1 and 3 months.ResultsThere were no significant differences between two groups at baseline. BOP, PPD and FMBS showed significant improvements in the test group (P ≤ 0.001). In terms of PI, FMPS and CAL, no significant differences were observed between both groups (P ≥ 0.05).ConclusionaPDT as an adjunctive approach yielded complete resolution of inflammation and significant reduction in periodontal pocket depth. However, aPDT had no additional advantages in clinical attachment gain and plaque score.