[Amount of mineralized tissue removed by root planing]

The Author's aim was to determine the amount of mineralized tissues removed during root planing conducted by means of a curette, using a profilometer. Records were kept at time 0 and after 4 cycles of 5 strokes each. Mean values of final records show that the average of tissue removal, expressed in microns, was greater than the mean thickness of cementum in the instrumented areas.