An investigation into the use of a force-indentation probe as a possible method of scoring inflammation in gingival...

An attempt is described to use a hand-held force-indentation probe to investigate changes in the consistency of gingiva resulting from chronic inflammation. As the probe is hand-held the gingiva must be indented to about half its depth to reduce the error resulting from hand-shake. Thus the probe measures a combination of hardness and depth of the tissue, as confirmed by tests on rubber. The repeatability of the results obtained from the probe is good, though large variations can occur. Tests on rubber demonstrated that this was not due to the device or the hand-held technique. Force-indentation curves were obtained from 36 patients and were classified by buccal or papillae site and by the gingival index (GI) of two scorers. The mean force-indentation curves for each classification were compared and were found to be related to the GI, there being a significant difference between each pair of curves. Although there is no direct evidence that the force-indentation curves are measuring the same thing as the GI, the results show that the probe may be a useful tool in objectively studying changes in the condition of gingiva.