Polyhexamethylene guanidine phosphate irrigation as an adjunctive to scaling and root planing in the treatment of chronic periodontitis.

To evaluate the efficacy of adjunctive polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) phosphate irrigation in periodontal treatment.The subjects comprised 59 patients with severe chronic periodontitis. Plaque index, bleeding on probing (BOP) and pocket probing depths (PPD) were recorded. The subjects were randomly allocated to one of three groups for scaling and root planning, with different adjunctive irrigants: 1% PHMG phosphate (19 subjects), 0.2% chlorhexidine (21 subjects) and distilled water (19 subjects). Patients were recalled after two weeks, one month and then after 4, 6 and 12 months.In all groups, treatment resulted in considerable improvement of the observed clinical parameters. There were no intergroup differences in plaque index and BOP at any time point, but significant differences in PPD at one, four and six months. By the end of the study no intergroup differences in PPDs persisted. While post study surgical treatment needs decreased in all three groups, no intergroup differences were observed in the number of deep periodontal pockets.Irrigation with PHMG phosphate significantly reduces PPDs in the short-term, but has no significant long-term effect on the mean pocket depth.