Retained "hopeless" teeth: lack of effect periodontally-treated teeth have on the proximal periodontium of adjacent teeth 8-years later.

We previously reported the lack of effect periodontally-treated teeth prognosed "hopeless" and retained for 3.4 +/- 1.5 years have on the proximal periodontium of adjacent teeth. We now report our findings for the same group of subjects following 8.4 +/- 0.7 years of "hopeless" tooth retention. Of the 17 "hopeless" and adjacent teeth originally measured in 17 subjects, 14 of the subjects were still available for re-evaluation. Measures used to assess the periodontium of proximal surfaces of adjacent teeth included pocket depths (PD), radiographic alveolar bone level (R-BL), and periodontal ligament space width (W-PL). Treatment for the subjects consisted of surgical therapy (N = 15) and scaling and root planing (N = 2). Of the 14 subjects re-examined, 2 were eliminated due to loss of adjacent tooth reference points and 2 due to extraction of the "hopeless" tooth (N = 10). Differences in measurements (i.e., nonadjacent to "hopeless" tooth value minus adjacent to "hopeless" tooth value) were analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA. There were no significant differences for PD (P = 0.20), R-BL (P = 0.29), or W-PL (P = 0.16). These data confirm our original findings that retained periodontally "hopeless" teeth do not significantly affect the proximal periodontium of adjacent teeth following therapy.