Adjunctive benefits of systemic amoxicillin and metronidazole in non-surgical treatment of generalized aggressive periodontitis: a randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial

Background: The objective of this study was to assess the adjunctive clinical effect of the administration of systemic amoxicillin and metronidazole in the non-surgical treatment of generalized aggressive periodontitis (GAP). Methods: Forty-one systemically healthy subjects with GAP were included in this 6-month double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial. Patients received a course of full-mouth non-surgical periodontal treatment delivered over a 24 h period using machine-driven and hand instruments. Test subjects received an adjunctive course of systemic antibiotic consisting of 500 mg amoxicillin and 500 mg metronidazole three times a day for 7 days. Clinical parameters were collected at baseline, and at 2 and 6 months post-treatment. Results: In both the test and the placebo groups, all clinical parameters improved at 2 and 6 months. In deep pockets ( >= 7 mm), the test treatment resulted in an additional 1.4 mm (95% confidence interval 0.8, 2.0 mm) in full-mouth probing pocket depth (PPD) reduction and 1 mm (0.7, 1.3 mm) of life cumulative attachment loss (LCAL) gain at 6 months. In moderate pockets (4-6 mm), the adjunctive benefit was smaller in magnitude: PPD reduction was 0.4 mm (0.1, 0.7 mm) and LCAL gain was 0.5 mm (0.2, 0.8 mm). In addition, the 6-month data showed LCAL gains >= 2 mm at 25% of sites in test patients compared with 16% in placebo (p = 0.028). Similarly, PPD reductions of 2 mm or more were observed in 30% of sites in test and 21% of sites in placebo patients. Seventy-four percent of pockets with PPD >= 5 mm at baseline were 4 mm or shallower at 6 months in the test group. This compared with 54% in the placebo group (p = 0.008). Disease progression at 6 months was observed at 1.5% of test and 3.3% of sites in test and placebo, respectively (p = 0.072). Conclusions: These data indicate that a 7-day adjunctive course of systemic metronidazole and amoxicillin significantly improved the short-term clinical outcomes of full-mouth non-surgical periodontal debridement in subjects with GAP.