Patient Centered Outcomes in Periodontal Treatment-An Evidenced Based Approach

Transformation of research into clinical practice is the most challenging step in evidence based dental practice. Designing the most reliable research with applicable endpoint evaluation is very important as it can lead to successful research outcomes that can be accepted in clinical practice. In the periodontal research few accepted endpoints are used frequently as they are believed to be the gold standard in measuring the periodontal disease and the treatment outcomes. However, a wide range of endpoints used are surrogate endpoints and these endpoints have no direct correlation with the patient centered outcomes. Hence, a direct relationship of surrogate endpoints with true endpoints needs to be established. This review highlights the importance of true endpoints and challenges in implementing these in clinical research. Importance of patient's centered outcomes are also reviewed and duly discussed here. Need for conducting research which includes the true endpoints or the surrogate endpoints with clinical applicability and tangible outcomes, was also suggested in this review.