Clinical evaluation of air polishing with erythritol powder followed by ultrasonic calculus removal versus conventional ultrasonic debridement and rubber cup polishing for the treatment of gingivitis: A split‐mouth randomized controlled clinical trial

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the clinical efficacy in the short-term resolution of gingivitis of a novel protocol involving full-mouth erythritol powder air polishing followed by ultrasonic calculus removal. METHODS Forty-one healthy patients completed the study. Following a split-mouth design, quadrants 1-4 and 2-3 were randomly allocated to receive air polishing followed by ultrasonic calculus removal (A+US) or traditional full-mouth ultrasonic debridement followed by polishing with a rubber cup and prophylactic paste (US+P). Bleeding on probing (BoP) and plaque index (PI) were collected at baseline and 2 and 4 weeks. Moreover, the residual plaque area (RPA), treatment time and patient comfort/satisfaction were evaluated at the end of the treatment. RESULTS Both treatments showed a significant reduction in BoP and PI. At 4 weeks, A+US seems to reach a statistically significant lower BoP (8.7% [6.9; 10.9] vs. 11.6%[9.3; 14.4], p