Efficacy of Oral Probiotics as an Adjunct to Scaling and Root Planing in Nonsurgical Treatment Outcome of Generalized Chronic Periodontitis Patients: A Clinico-Microbiological Study

Aim: This study aims to find out the effects of Probiotics, delivered with a lozenge for its effect on clinical and microbiological parameters in subjects with chronic periodontitis after scaling and root planing (SRP). Materials and methods: A total of 40 generalized mild to moderate chronic periodontitis subjects were finally enrolled in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical study. Selected subjects after SRP were randomly divided into two groups: Group I (test group) with 20 subjects receiving probiotic tablet once daily and group II (control group) receiving placebo tablets once daily. Clinical parameters and bacterial count for Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Prevotella intermedia, Fusobacterium nucleatum were evaluated at baseline, 2, and 4 months after the medication. Results: On comparative evaluation between the two groups, results indicated that group I (probiotic group) exhibited statistically significant reduction in both clinical and microbiological levels than group II (control group) over the entire span of the study. Conclusion: Our results proved that daily oral supplementation of probiotics could be a useful adjunct to SRP in chronic periodontitis patients.