Objectives: Recently the Nd: YAP has been used in the treatment of periodontal disease. However, there is no previous clinical studies which thoroughly compared the in vivo effects of the Nd: YAP laser with scaling and root planing (SRP)treatment.The purpose of this study was to evaluate the in vivo effects of Nd: YAP laser treatment versus scaling and root planing (SRP) treatment by the measurement of probing depth (PD) in 80 sites harvested from 9 periodontitis patients.Methods: Two to 4 chronic periodontitis-affected sites of more than 5 mm PD from single-root teeth in each of 4 separate quadrants were selected from patient for clinical parameters measurement .80 periodontally affected sites from each disease quadrant was randomly placed in one of the following four treatment groups (1) subgingival laser treatment (160mJ,30Hz ) only (2) SRP only (3) laser treatment first, followed by SPR 6 weeks later (4) SRP first, followed by laser treatment 6 weeks later Clinical parameters were collected at baseline before therapy and at 6th and 12th week respectively.Result: Clinical improvement in 2)and 4)groups at 6th week(p<0.001) and in 2),3),4) groups but not in 1) group at 12th week(p<0.001)were found. Subgingival laser treatment only did not have clinical improvement (p=0.4087). SRP first, followed by laser treatment showed a further reduction of PD(6 to 12 weeks after treatment )(p=0.0412). Conclusion: Our data suggest that Nd:YAP laser treatment only appeared to be less effective than traditional SRP treatment. After SRP treatment,the Nd:YAP laser seems to have additional effect in PD reduction. The laser treatment should be used as adjunct of SRP but not substituted for traditional SRP therapy.

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