Non-surgical mechanical therapy of peri-implantitis with or without repeated adjunctive diode laser application. A 6-month double-blinded randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to investigate the outcomes following non-surgical therapy of peri-implantitis (PI) with or without adjunctive diode laser application. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A double-blinded randomized controlled clinical trial was carried out in 25 subjects with 25 implants diagnosed with PI. Following curettage of granulation tissue, test implants (T) were treated with adjunctive application of a diode laser for 90 s (settings: 810 nm, 2.5 W, 50 Hz, 10 ms), while at control implants (C) non-activated adjunctive diode laser was applied. The entire treatment procedure was performed at days 0 (i.e., baseline), 7 and 14. The primary outcome measure was change in mean pocket probing depth (PPD). Clinical and microbiological outcomes, as well as host-derived inflammatory markers were evaluated at baseline, 3 and 6 months, while radiographic outcomes were assessed at baseline and at the 6-month follow-up. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences with respect to baseline patient characteristic were observed. After 6 months, both test and control implants yielded statistically significant PPD changes compared with baseline (T: 1.28 and C: 1.47 mm) but without statistically significant difference between groups (p = .381). No statistically significant changes in peri-implant marginal bone levels were detected (p = .936). No statistically significant differences between test and control implants were observed with respect to microbiological and host-derived parameters (p > .05). At the 6-month follow-up, treatment success was observed in 41.7% (n = 5) of test and 46.2% (n = 6) of control patients, respectively (p = .821). CONCLUSION: Repeated adjunctive application of diode laser in the non-surgical management of PI failed to provide significant benefits compared with mechanical instrumentation alone.