Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Oral and dental medicine - Department of Periodontology

Background: Multiple gingival recessions are usually more challenging over single recession ones. Tunnelling technique aims to preserve esthetics, papillary integrity and avoid scar formation by excluding vertical incisions. But being a sensitive blind technique with increased trauma to sulcular epithelium led to the proposal of VISTA technique which avoids some of the potential complications occurring with intrasulcular incisions. Materials and methods: 20 patients (12 females and 8 males) with multiple Miller class I and II recession defects were treated with SCTG in conjugation with either VISTA or Tunneling technique. Patients were randomly assigned to VISTA (n=10) or Tunneling technique (n=10). Recession depth, width, pocket depth, clinical attachment level, keratinized tissue width and gingival thickness were evaluated after 6 months. The esthetic outcomes were evaluated by assessing the root coverage esthetic score and percentage of root coverage while patient reported outcomes as pain and edema were assessed through VAS based questionnaires.Results: After 6 months there was a statistically significant difference between (VISTA+SCTG) and (Tunneling+SCTG) regarding gingival thickness, pain and edema scores in favor of the VISTA group but there was a statistically significant reduction in keratinized tissue width with VISTA technique after 3 and 6 months. There was a statistically significant reduction in recession depth, width, clinical attachment level and probing depth after 6 months. No statistically significant difference exited between the two groups regarding the percentage of root coverage or the root coverage esthetic score

Issued also as CD