Evaluation of the adjunctive use of Er:YAG laser or erythritol powder air‐polishing in the treatment of peri‐implant mucositis: A randomized clinical trial

Abstract Aim To assess the efficacy of Er:YAG laser (ERL) and erythritol powder air‐polishing (AP) in addition to the submarginal instrumentation in the non‐surgical treatment of peri‐implant mucositis (PM). Materials and Methods Patients with at least one implant diagnosed with PM were included in the present 6‐month randomized clinical trial (RCT). Implants were randomly assigned to one of the three treatment groups after submarginal instrumentation: AP (test 1 group), ERL (test 2 group) or no adjunctive methods (control group). The primary and secondary outcomes were, respectively, bleeding on probing (BoP) reduction and, complete disease resolution (total absence of BoP) and probing pocket depth (PPD) changes. The patient and the implant were considered the statistical unit. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed. Results A total of 75 patients were enrolled in the study. At each time point, significant BoP and PPD reductions were observed within each group. Intergroup analysis did not show statistically significant differences. Complete disease resolution ranged between 29% and 31%. The logistic regression showed that supramucosal restoration margin, PPD < 4 mm and vestibular keratinized mucosa (KM) significantly influenced the probability to obtain treatment success. Conclusion The adjunctive use of AP and ERL in PM non‐surgical therapy does not seem to provide any significant or clinically relevant benefit in terms of BoP and PPD reductions and complete disease resolution, over the use of submarginal instrumentation alone. Baseline PPD < 4 mm, presence of buccal KM and supramucosal restoration margin may play a role in the complete resolution of PM.