EVALUATION OF GINGIVAL EPITHELIAL CHANGES THROUGH OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY AT PERIODONTAL PATIENTS WEARING FIXED DENTAL PROSTHESIS

The current in vitro investigation aim is to identify changes in optical coherence tomography images of gingival tissue samples by analyzing the epithe-lial thickness and its pixel density, trying to find connections with the gingival inflammatory condition of periodontitis patients wearing fixed dental prosthetics. Material and methods: A total of 25 patients were admitted in this study, and were undergone a clinical periodontal examination, where probing depth (PD) and gingival inflammation index (GI) were record-ed, and gingival samples also were collected from teeth with and without dental prosthesis, consequently two groups were obtained: control group CG-25 gingival samples from the teeth not wearing a dental prosthesis and prosthetic group PG-25 gingival samples from the teeth wearing a dental prosthesis. The samples were analyzed through optical coherence to-mography. Results: The results show a statistically unsignificant difference in PD between the two groups, but also a statistically significant difference in GI between the two groups. A statistically significant difference was found between the epithelial thickness (ET) between the two groups. A strong inverse and statistically significant correlation were discovered b e-tween ET and GI. Conclusions: The OCT analysis has proved useful in showing that there could be a possible association between periodontal changes and fixed dental prosthesis, and it also showed that fixed prosthodontics has a significant negative impact on the periodonti-um, making possible not only the treatment but the prevention of periodontal clinical chang-es in patients wearing dental prosthesis, thus improving the quality of life of these patients.