Probiotics with SRP effective for treatment of periodontitis, Finds study

The study involved 80 patients diagnosed with periodontitis. All participants underwent SRP therapy. Semi-solid probiotic was then locally applied to the periodontal pocket in randomly selected patients for the test group (40 of them).

The other 40 patients were in the control group. Clinical parameters including periodontal pocket depth (PPD), bleeding on probing (BOP) and plaque index (PI) were measured at baseline, and at 7 and 30 days after treatment.

The following results were observed-

1. Seven days after the applied therapy in the test and control group, there was a significant decrease in the values or BOP (p < .001), while the values of other parameters did not show a statistically significant difference (p < .05).
2. One month after the therapy in both groups, there was a statistically significant difference in the values of all clinical parameters (p < .001).

Therefore, the authors concluded that "based on the results of this pilot study, it can be said that, during periodontal treatment, topical application of probiotics in combination with SRP increases the effectiveness of conventional non-surgical therapy of periodontitis."