Perio Master Clinic 2023: Facing the challenge of performing mucogingival surgery on orthodontic patients

One of the clinical challenges that will be addressed at the EFP’s Perio Master Clinic 2023, which takes place in Antwerp on March 3 and 4, will be how to perform mucogingival surgery in patients who have received orthodontic treatment.

The session “Mucogingival surgery in orthodontically treated patients” takes place on Saturday, March 4 and will be moderated by the event’s scientific chair Virginie Monnet-Corti.

The first presentation, “Challenging situations: explore the limits and possibilities”, will be given by Natasha Lioubavina-Hack (Netherlands), who will address the fact that any patients who require periodontal plastic mucogingival surgery are young and have either received or need orthodontic treatment.

In these cases, the periodontist faces four key questions:

• Whether to operate or refer the patient to an orthodontist.
• Which surgical technique to apply in individual cases to eliminate or decrease gingival recessions?
• Which negative factors should be controlled before treatment?
• What are the long-term results in severe perio-ortho cases?

Dr Lioubavina-Hack, who has a private practice in periodontology and implantology in De Meern and is a vice-president of the Dutch Society of Periodontology, will argue that the lack of scientific guidelines means that clinicians choose treatment approaches according to their own expertise and experience, and that sometimes it is necessary to take risks in complex multidisciplinary cases in a bid to save teeth.

Next comes a two-handed presentation on the interdisciplinary approach to treating gingival recessions in post-orthodontic patients by Anton Sculean and Christos Katsaros (both from Switzerland).

This “duo lecture” will discuss the relationship between orthodontic treatment and the long-term development of gingival recession and illustrate the clinical situations that need orthodontic preparation before surgical coverage of gingival recession can be performed.

The speakers will present clinical cases and surgical videos to illustrate the basic concepts and techniques for surgical coverage of gingival recessions.

Anton Sculean is professor and chair of the Department of Periodontology at the University of Bern in Switzerland. A former EFP president, he was scientific chair of Perio Master Clinic 2020 (Dublin) and is currently scientific chair of International Perio Master Clinic 2023 (León, Mexico), and chair of EuroPerio11 (Vienna, 2025). Christos Katsaros is professor and chair at the Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics at the University of Bern.

The session will conclude with a case presentation by Brenda Mertens (France), who will give a step-by-step account of treating a patient who needed a multidisciplinary treatment approach to achieve a functional, biological, and aesthetic result.

Perio Master Clinic 2023, on “The Perio-Ortho Synergy”, takes place at the Flanders Meeting & Convention Centre in Antwerp, Belgium, on March 3 and 4.

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