Abstract
BACKGROUND: Periodontal and peri-implant soft tissue management in oral rehabilitation is often necessary to achieve more esthetic and stable clinical results. This involves harvesting connective tissue from the palate. There is no consensus about the technique that will cause less postoperative pain in the donor area. Thus, this prospective cohort study compared the postoperative morbidity of two surgical techniques from the palate donor site: the free gingival graft (FGG)/de-epithelialized technique and the linear technique/subepithelial technique. METHODS: Sixteen patients were randomly assigned to the FGG/de-epithelialized removal group (G1) and the removal of the connective tissue graft (CTG) with the linear/subepithelial technique group (G2). The morbidity analysis consisted of measuring the number of anti-inflammatory agents taken in the postoperative period, pain analysis through a visual analog scale, and visual analysis of healing of palatal soft tissues 1, 2, and 3 weeks after surgery. RESULTS: The results showed that the G1 patients took more anti-inflammatory drugs (mean=9.88) than the G2 (mean=3.63) and experienced more postoperative pain (mean=6.38) than G2 (mean=3) (P<0.05 for both parameters). In the visual analysis of healing, the results were better for G1 on days 7 and 21; however, on day 14, the results were better for G2, with no significant differences (P>0.05) between the groups at any of the experimental times. CONCLUSION: Both techniques promoted effective healing of the palatal area; however, the removal by the linear graft technique caused less postoperative pain.