Reproducibility of clinical attachment level and probing depth of a manual probe and a computerized electronic probe

The aim of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of a conventional manual probe (MP) and an electronic probe, the Florida Probe (FP). Twenty patients with chronic periodontitis were assessed for pocket depth (PD) and clinical attachment level (CAL) by one examiner. Replicate measurements were taken one hour apart with each probe, on anterior teeth, at six sites per tooth. Pearson's correlation test and Student's paired t-test were used for the statistical analysis. The results showed that there were no significant differences in PD between the replicate measurements of both FP and MP (p > 0.05), although the correlation value was higher for FP (r = 0.97, p < 0.01) than for MP (r = 0.54, p < 0.05). Considering CAL, no differences were found between replicate measurements for both FP and MP (p > 0.05) and correlation values were similar (0.57 and 0.64, respectively, p < 0.001). Although the FP showed higher correlation values for PD, no significant differences were found between duplicate measurements for both probes. Thus, both electronic and manual probing measurements seem to be reproducible when assessing periodontal disease.