A clinical study of the effect of Nd:YAG laser irradiation on inflamed gingiva

염증성 치은에 대한 Nd:YAG laser 조사효과에 관한 임상적 연구

Periodontal disease is characterized by destruction of supporting tissues caused by invasion of plaque bacteria and defense mechanism of host. Many dentists are very interested in laser therapy on various intraoral soft tissue lesions including inflammatory periodontal pocket. In order to determine the therapeutic effect of intrapocket irradiation of a pulsed- Nd : YAG laser on the inflammatory periodontal pockets, bilateral 60 teeth with 4-6mm in probing pocket depth and gingival inflammation were selected and evaluated by sulcus bleeding index(SBI), and plaque index(pI) for baseline record. Intrapocket irradiation($300{\mu}m$ fiber optic, I.5W power, for 2 min.) of a pulsed-Nd : YAG laser(EL.EN.EN060, Italy) was applied on half of them. As the control group, the same procedure except power-off was repeated on the contralateral 30 teeth. At 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-week after intrapocket manipulation, every tooth was reevaluated by the same clinical indices. And the difference between the lased group and control group was statistically analyzed by paired t-test and Chi-square test in Microstat program. Following results were obtained: 1. Until I-week and 2-week after intrapocket manipulation, SBI was lowered in both lased group and control group, compared to baseline SBI, but from 3-week after, the recovering tendency toward baseline was noted, and at only 2-week after, the number of teeth showing lowered SBI was significantly more in lased group than in control group(p<0.05). 2. PI of both lased group and control group was lowered through whole experimental period from I-week to 4-week after, compared to baseline PI(p<0.05), but there was no significant difference between lased group and control group(p>0.1). The results suggest that intrapocket irradiation of a pulsed-Nd:YAG laser may lead somewhat remission of gingival inflammation, but for more favorable therapeutic result the thorough root planing should be necessarily accompanied with gingival curettage.