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Assessment of partial-mouth periodontal examination protocols for periodontitis surveillance
Duong T Tran1, Isabel Gay, Xianglin L Du
1School of Dentistry, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
Objective:
To evaluate bias associated with nine identified partial-mouth periodontal examination (PMPE) protocols in estimating periodontitis prevalence using the periodontitis case definition given by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and American Academy of Periodontology (CDC/AAP).
Material And Methods:
Prevalence from full-mouth examination was determined in a sample of 3667 adults ≥30 years old from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2009-2010. Prevalence, absolute bias, relative bias, sensitivity and inflation factor were derived for these protocols according to the CDC/AAP definition and half-reduced CDC/AAP definition as ≤50% of sites were measured.
Results:
Bias in moderate and severe periodontitis prevalence ranged between 11.1-52.5% and 27.1-76.3% for full-mouth mesiobuccal-distolingual protocol and half-mouth mesiobuccal protocol respectively; according to the CDC/AAP definition. With half-reduced CDC/AAP definition, half-mouth four sites protocol provided small absolute bias (3.2%) and relative bias (9.3%) for the estimates of moderate periodontitis prevalence; corresponding biases for severe periodontitis were -1.2% and -10.2%.
Conclusion:
Periodontitis prevalence can be estimated with limited bias when a half-mouth four sites protocol and a half-reduced CDC/AAP case definition are used in combination.
