Clinical regeneration with guided tissue barriers.

This review of the current periodontal literature evaluates clinical regeneration with guided tissue barriers in infrabony defects and furcations. A meta-analysis was conducted by calculating weighted means with confidence intervals for each treatment group. Clinical improvement in infrabony defects was best for polylactic acid/polyglactin (PLA/PGA) barriers, with a mean pocket reduction of 5.3 mm and a mean gain in clinical probing attachment level of 4.7 mm. For furcations, special attention was given to the frequency of either complete or partial (> or = 50%) furcation closure. Complete furcation closure was an infrequent result of guided tissue regeneration, occurring in only 7% to 19% of furcations treated with barriers. For the time period reported, the best clinical results in furcations and infrabony defects occurred with PLA/PGA-type barriers. However, there were no statistically significant differences among the various barriers in infrabony defects or furcations.