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Photographic scoring of gingival overgrowth
J S Ellis1, R A Seymour, P Robertson
1The Dental School, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Background:
A wide range of methods have been employed to determine the severity of gingival overgrowth resulting in uncertainty regarding the prevalence of the side-effect. There is no simple, non-invasive, objective, blind method for assessing gingival overgrowth.
Aim:
This article aims to describe a method which is suitable for use in large-scale population studies.
Materials And Methods:
Photographs were taken of the anterior, buccal gingivae and teeth of 925 patients medicated with calcium channel blockers. In addition, each patient was ascribed a clinical gingival overgrowth score. 100 patients had repeat photographs, and a further 10 patients had alginate impressions taken. The models were scored for severity of gingival overgrowth using a described technique. The slides were scored using a modification of this technique.
Results:
When photographic and study model scores were compared, photographic scores were consistently higher, and as a result, a photographic score of 38.6% was considered to represent a significant overgrowth. There was good agreement between clinically determined scores and photographic scores (kappa=0.71).
Conclusions:
The results indicate that this method is suitable for large-scale population studies where it also has the advantage of providing a continuous scale of gingival changes for subsequent statistical analysis.