Full mouth disinfection typically refers to an intense course of treatment for

periodontitis Periodontal disease, also known as gum disease, is a set of inflammatory conditions affecting the tissues surrounding the teeth. In its early stage, called gingivitis, the gums become swollen and red and may bleed. It is considered the main cau ...

typically involving

scaling and root planing Scaling and root planing, also known as conventional periodontal therapy, non-surgical periodontal therapy or deep cleaning, is a procedure involving removal of dental plaque and calculus (scaling or debridement) and then smoothing, or planing, o ...

in combination with adjunctive use of local antimicrobial adjuncts to periodontal treatment such as

chlorhexidine Chlorhexidine (CHX) (commonly known by the salt forms chlorhexidine gluconate and chlorhexidine digluconate (CHG) or chlorhexidine acetate) is a disinfectant and antiseptic that is used for skin disinfection before surgery and to sterilize surgi ...

in various ways of application. The aim is to complete

debridement Debridement is the medical removal of dead, damaged, or infected tissue to improve the healing potential of the remaining healthy tissue. Removal may be surgical, mechanical, chemical, autolytic (self-digestion), and by maggot therapy. In p ...

of all

periodontal pocket Gingival and periodontal pockets (also informally referred to as gum pockets) are dental terms indicating the presence of an abnormal depth of the gingival sulcus near the point at which the gingival tissue contacts the tooth. Tooth gingival inte ...

areas within a short time frame such as 24 hours, in order to minimize the chance of reinfection of the pockets with

pathogens In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a ger ...

coming from another oral niches like the tongue, tonsils and non-treated

. Eberhard (2022) published a

Cochrane review Cochrane (previously known as the Cochrane Collaboration) is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health profes ...

(systematic review and

meta-analysis A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...

) which found modest benefit for full mouth disinfection, but the superiority (or otherwise) of the intervention had not at the time of review been conclusively demonstrated. Current recommendations support its use as equal and equivalent to other established effective treatment modalities.

References

{{dentistry Dentistry Periodontology