BSP will hold four webinars to explain new classification of periodontal and peri-implant diseases

The British Society of Periodontology (BSP) is to hold a series of webinars for UK dentists, hygienists, and hygiene therapists on the new classification of periodontal and peri-implant diseases and conditions.

The first webinar, given by Prof Iain Chapple, will take place on Tuesday, September 25 and will cover periodontal health and gingival diseases.

Subsequent webinars will cover periodontitis (Prof Ian Needleman, November), systemic diseases and conditions that affect periodontal attachment (Prof Francis Hughes, December), and peri-implant diseases and conditions (Prof Nikos Donos, February 2019).

The four webinars reflect the content of the four working groups that drew up the detailed new classification at the World Workshop on the classification of periodontal and peri-implant diseases and conditions, held in Chicago in November 2017.

The consensus reports of the World Workshop – a joint event of the EFP and the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) that involved more than a hundred experts from around the world – were formally presented at EuroPerio9 in June.

This series of BSP webinars starts as the EFP finalises its own detailed plan to provide materials to explain the new classification and to help train oral-healthcare teams on how to implement it in daily clinical practice.

EFP secretary general Iain Chapple, who presents the first of the BSP webinars, was co-chair of the World Workshop working group on defining gingival health and disease. Profs Needleman, Hughes, and Donos were participants in the working groups whose conclusions they will present in their respective webinars.

In the first webinar, Prof Chapple will explain the evidence base and deliberations underpinning the new World Workshop classification of periodontal conditions in relation to health, gingivitis on an intact periodontium, and gingivitis on a reduced periodontium. The webinar will also provide a simplified classification for non-plaque-induced gingival diseases and conditions.

Available outside UK

Each webinar is free, but for technical reasons only the first 500 UK participants to log in will be able to participate in the live events.

The recording of Prof Iain Chapple’s webinar will be available online (including to people outside the UK) from Tuesday, October 2 for a period of six months.  However, advance registration before September 25 is required to be able to view the webinar on the website

Similar arrangements are planned for the other three webinars. The details are available on the BSP website: https://www.bsperio.org.uk/events/info/webinar-2017-world-workshop-classificati/. 

The BSP is also scheduling a World Workshop session for its next annual conference, to be held in Brighton in April 2019.

Penny Hodge, BSP president, said: “The BSP wishes to help clinicians to adopt the new classification into their daily practice as soon as possible.  We planned the webinars and formed an implementation group to enable its dissemination and will be publishing guidance in the autumn.”

The proceedings of the World Workshop on the classification of periodontal and peri-implant diseases and conditions have been published online as a special supplement of the EFP’s official scientific publication, the Journal of Clinical Periodontology (JCP).