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Published on: December 31, 2017
[Accuracy of partial-mouth examination protocols in periodontal epidemiological surveys: a systemic review]
1The First Outpatient Dental Clinic, Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology, Beijing 100081, China.
Objective:
To evaluate the accuracy of partial- mouth periodontal examination (PMPE) protocols frequently used in epidemiological periodontal surveys.
Methods:
Articles in English or Chinese published before Jan 31st 2014 were searched, which compared the results of PMPE protocols with those of gold-standard protocol, i.e.full-mouthmesialbuccal-midbuccal-distobuccal-mesiolingual-midlingual-distolingual (MB-B-DB-ML-L-DL) protocol.
Results:
Twelve articles were included and nine that frequently used PMPE protocols were evaluated. All these protocols underestimated the prevalence scores. For prevalence of probing depth (PD) ≥ 4 mm, 6 mm and attachment loss (AL) ≥ 4 mm, 6 mm, smaller amount of underestimation was observed in community periodontal index of treatment needs (CPITN) teeth (-12.6%--3.5%), full-mouth MB-B-DB (-16.1%--3.5%), full-mouth MB-B-DL (-10.8%--6.1%) and half-mouth MB-B-DB-ML-L-DL (-23.6%--2.0%) protocols. For severity and extent estimates, half-mouth MB-B-DB-ML- L-DL provided lowest biased results (relative bias: -1.0%- 1.1% for severity and -6.7%-0.1% for extent). Full-and half-mouth MB-B-DB also performed well, with relative bias within ± 5.0% in most cases. CPITN overestimated the severity and extent of periodontal disease, the relative bias of which amounted to 42.3% and 38.1%, respectively.
Conclusions:
Half-mouth MB-B-DB-ML-L-DL and full-mouth MB-B-DB protocols caused lower biased results in prevalence, severity and extent estimates of PD and AL.

