Air polishing therapy in supportive periodontal treatment: a systematic review

The aim of this study was to analyze tooth surface roughness and clinical parameters by a systematic review of the literature to compare the efficacy of air polishing with hand or ultrasonic instrumentation during supportive periodontal therapy (SPT). This study used a research question based on the PICO method. Bibliographic research was performed using four different databases. For the search of the articles, the work was divided into two parts: the first part analyzed the clinical parameters of air polishing in supportive periodontal therapy, and the second part analyzed the effects of air polishing on hard tissues. Of 164 articles concerning clinical parameters, 49 met the inclusion criteria; from 64 articles concerning hard tissues, it reached 4. Excluding these doubles, 12 were chosen for the literature review: eight RCTs, one retrospective cohort study, and three in vitro studies. The scientific literature has shown that air polishing, scaling, and root planing in supportive periodontal therapy give similar clinical results. However, air polishing seems to preserve the hard tissues of the tooth more than the traditional treatment with ultrasonic or manual instrumentation.