Gingival health and gingivitis development during puberty. A 4-year longitudinal study.

The purpose of this investigation was to follow the development of the gingival conditions during puberty and to correlate oral clinical parameters with chronological age as well as with parameters used for the determination of the pubertal development. In 22 boys and 20 girls pubertal and skeletal development, as well as plaque index (PlI) and gingival index (GI) were monitored at 1-year intervals between the ages of 11 and 15 years. During this time, the papillary bleeding index (PBI) was assessed 10 times in all interdental spaces of the dentition. The bleeding tendency, represented by whole mouth mean PBI values, as well as the % of bleeding interdental sites, was found to increase significantly with the start of the pubertal phase. It reached a peak value after 1-5 years in 35% of the children. A significant trend of decrease was noted after the age of 14 years in boys and girls. In boys, mean PBI and the % of interdental sites with bleeding were correlated with testes growth, in girls with the Tanner index for secondary sex characteristics (breast development). PlI and GI, which were only recorded annually, did not show a significant trend of increase or decrease.