COMPARISON OF THE REPRODUCIBILITY OF MEASUREMENTS OBTAINED BY A 1ST GENERATION, 2ND GENERATION AND 3RD GENERATION PERIODONTAL PROBE.

Background: The assessment of clinical attachment level (CAL) remains the gold standard for diagnosing and monitoring periodontal disease .There are certain errors inherent in the use of periodontal probes like probing force, visual errors in identifying the cemento- enamel junction (CEJ), gingival inflammation and misrecording measurements. The main aim of our study is to compare the reproducibility of measurements obtained by the UNC-15 Periodontal probe (1st generation), PDT Pressure sensitive probe (2nd generation) and the Florida probe (3rd generation probe). The study was conducted by two trained examiners. Methods: Thirty adult healthy subjects, with an age-range of 25-60 years, having moderate to advanced periodontitis in otherwise systemically healthy patients were included in this study . Probing depth (PD) and clinical attachment level (CAL) were recorded on three teeth in the same quadrant.Four measurements per tooth were recorded (mesio-buccal, mid-buccal, disto-buccal and mid-palatal/lingual.The measurements recorded by using three generations of probes were subjected to statistical analysis for comparison of accuracy and reproducibility. Results: The PD and CAL measurements obtained by UNC 15 probe were higher than PDT pressure sensitive probe and Florida probe but there was no statistical significance in variability of PD and CAL measurements between the conventional and the controlled pressure probe. Inter -examiner consistency of Florida probe was found to be better than UNC-15 and PDT pressure sensitive probe. Conclusion: Within the limitations of our study, Florida probe has proved to have the greatest potential for accuracy and reliability for measurements of CAL than PDT Pressure sensitive probe and manual probe (UNC-15).