Gingival augmentation surgery appeared to succeed in decreasing recession in a long-term retrospective split-mouth study (Journal of Periodontology, May 22, 2009).
Investigators from the University of Florence looked at the mouths of 55 subjects in which 73 sites of recessive gingiva were treated with gingival grafts and 73 contralateral sites were not treated over a period of 10-27 years.
The grafted sites were treated with either submarginal or marginal free grafts.
At the end of the follow-up period, the researchers found that the submarginal grafted sites had an average reduction of 1.5 mm ± 1.0 mm in the recession. The marginal group had a reduction of 1.3 mm ± 0.9 mm. In the untreated sites, the recession increased 0.7 mm ± 0.7 mm contralateral to the submarginal sites and 1.0 mm ± 0.5 mm contralateral to the marginal sites.
The amount of keratinized tissue remained stable in the treated sites, and probing depth remained stable in both untreated and treated sites.
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