Evaluating Nd:YAG Laser Effectiveness in Treating Gingival Hyperplasia Following Orthodontic Treatment

Objective: Nd:YAG laser has been extensively utilized in oral and periodontal surgery. This interference on tissues is evident in a number of operations: frenectomy, lesions excision, gingivectomy and gingival augmentation, coagulation of the graft-donor area, and crown lengthening. Laser has the ability to mitigate post-treatment complications, such as bleeding; it also reduces the possible complications during the removal of enlarged gingiva, especially with the presence of gingivitis. These aforementioned considerations induced us to study gingivectomy performed by Nd:YAG laser in gingival overgrowth cases following orthodontic treatment. Materials and methods:This study included 10 patients. Indices of bleeding on probing (BoP), gingival overgrowth (GO) and gingival inflammation (GI) had been measured prior to removing gingival structures. Gingivectomy was then performed for each jaw in two ways: Nd:YAG laser was used on one side, and the traditional surgical method on the other. Thus, the study included 40 samples, and then the same indices were studied 6 months after treatments. Results:After 6 months, post-treatment indices yielded the following values. Regarding the BoP index, the mean value for all the cases in the laser group reached 16.33; it was less and better than that of the traditional surgery group, which increased to 24.68. Mann-Whitney test achieved a degree of -2.583, and the p- value registered 0.010. As for the GO and GI indices, no statistically significant differences in the mean values were depicted between the two research groups. Conclusion: Nd:YAG laser has shown good effectiveness in the management of post- orthodontic gingival hyperplasia and is superior to traditional surgical treatment by improving some clinical indices such as bleeding on probing. However, no improvement was found in the laser group over the traditional one regarding the other two indices, namely GO and GI.