Perio Workshop 2021 meets to develop clinical practice guideline on treatment of stage IV periodontitis

Around 80 experts from 20 different countries gathered at Perio Workshop 2021 on November 7 to 9 to draw up a clinical practice guideline for the treatment of stage IV periodontitis.

The workshop, originally due to be held in November 2020 but twice postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, took place in La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia in Spain.

Participants, who included experts from other branches of dentistry, such as orthodontics and prosthodontics, and stakeholders representing relevant European institutions, considered 13 systematic reviews related to treatment for stage IV periodontitis. All the reviews have been accepted for publication in the EFP’s Journal of Clinical Periodontology (JCP) and some are already available in early online versions.

Participants were divided in four working groups:

• Working group 1, chaired by Søren Jepsen and Mariano Sanz, focused on orthodontic treatments.
• Working group 2, chaired by Moritz Kebschull and Anton Sculean, dealt with patients with partial edentulism, amenable to partial rehabilitation.
• Working group 3, chaired by Tord Berglund and Maurizio Tonetti, with the additional help of Panos Papapanou, discussed options for patients with a “terminal dentition”, only amenable to full-arch rehabilitation.
• Working group 4, chaired by Iain Chapple and David Herrera, explored the impact of treatment of stage IV periodontitis in terms of benefits in systemic health and quality of life, together with the supportive care for successful long-term results.

The aim of the workshop was to develop an S3-level clinical practice guideline. The new guideline will complement The Treatment of Stage I-III Periodontitis – The EFP S3-level Clinical Practice Guideline which was drawn up by Perio Workshop 2019. The S3 level of clinical practice guidelines is the highest level and requires a rigorous process in terms of both methodology and procedure.

“For their development, discussion and voting processes are essential, for which the in-person meeting in La Granja (with only four virtual participants) proved ideal,” said David Herrera, chair of Perio Workshop 2021.

“A good consensus was reached for most of the presented recommendations, with agreements among experts in different specialities in dentistry, and hoping to provide guidance for oral-health professionals all over the world in the management of the challenging cases of patients with stage IV periodontitis.”

After the postponement of the planned 2020 workshop, some preparatory work for the in-person Perio Workshop 2021 was done via online meetings, starting in July 2021 and with additional virtual meetings in September and October.

Following the workshop, the final documents for the guideline will be prepared and the new clinical practice guideline and systematic reviews will be published in a special issue of the JCP in early 2022. The guideline will then be adopted or adapted by the EFP-affiliated national societies of periodontology, and other national societies from all over the world, as happened with the EFP clinical practice guideline for the treatment of periodontitis in stages I-III.