Incorporating Patient-Reported Outcomes in Periodontal Clinical Trials

The authors review patient-reported outcome (PRO) metrics for dentistry, and in particular, periodontics. The PRO commentary for periodontics includes a review of split-mouth, randomized, controlled clinical trial results that specifically tracked pain at different sites over time after intervention and provided guidelines for peak pain time points and evidence for referred pain assessment when studying soft tissue augmentation procedures. Both the questions that are asked of patients and the timing of those questions are important study design considerations. The authors suggest PRO methodology for periodontal clinical trials that can be used to identify information important to patients and clinicians.