The EFP’s Perio Workshop 2022 has reached consensus agreements that will lead to the development of 52 recommendations that will comprise a clinical practice guideline for the challenging task of the prevention and treatment of peri-implant diseases.
At the workshop, held from November 6 to 9 at La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia in Spain, 71 experts (27 of them women, 38% of the total) from 21 countries evaluated 13 systematic reviews on peri-implant health and the prevention of peri-implant diseases, and the treatment of peri-implant mucositis and peri-implantitis.
In four working groups, they listened to the scientific evidence and voted on specific recommendations to create an evidence- and expert-based guideline for the prevention and treatment of peri-implant diseases, which is expected to be published in spring 2023 in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology.
The guideline will be of the highest level – S3 – like the two existing EFP guidelines for the treatment of stage I-III periodontitis and stage IV periodontitis, which were drawn up at previous editions of Perio Workshop, also known as the European Workshop in Periodontology.
“The development of this third EFP clinical-practice guideline was a challenge from the start,” said David Herrera, chair of the EFP workshop committee. “For periodontitis, decades of research and knowledge were available; for peri-implant diseases, as they are relatively novel, we knew from the beginning that we would have limited evidence.
“However, we believe that we could help clinicians and patients to take the best decisions by selecting those interventions that can be suggested or recommended, and by highlighting which interventions need additional research and should be a priority in the research agenda. I believe that the fruitful discussions in La Granja will help us to achieve those goals.”
The areas covered by the workshop were:
- Peri-implant health and prevention (working group 1, chaired by Iain Chapple and Søren Jepsen).
- Management of peri-implant mucositis (working group 2, chaired by Mariano Sanz and Anton Sculean).
- Non-surgical management of peri-implantitis (working group 3, chaired by David Herrera, Moritz Kebschull, and Maurizio Tonetti).
- Surgical management of peri-implantitis (working group 4, chaired by Tord Berglundh, Panos Papapanou, and Frank Schwarz).
“I have to acknowledge the role of the participants – the experts and the stakeholders who came to La Granja for the discussions and the voting process of the recommendations,” said Prof. Herrera, who also paid tribute to the experts who prepared the systematic reviews, the chairs of the working groups, and “the most important person in this workshop”, the guideline methodology consultant Dr. Ina Kopp.
“The topic of this workshop is extremely timely,” said EFP president Andreas Stavropoulos, “as it deals with peri-implant biological complications, which is a serious problem, and you have to address it with the seriousness it deserves.”
EFP secretary general Nicola West added: “The workshops are a key part of the EFP strategy to help inform oral-healthcare professionals, patients, and the public about periodontology and dental implants. We disseminate the information through the Journal of Clinical Periodontology, and with infographics on our website.”
Video interviews
A series of video interviews with the Perio Workshop 2022 working-group chairs and co-chairs will soon be released on the EFP’s YouTube channel. The interviews, conducted by Bettina Dannewitz, chair of the EFP communications committee, feature David Herrera, Tord Berglundh, Iain Chapple, Søren Jepsen, Moritz Kebschull, Panos Papapanou, Mariano Sanz, Frank Schwarz, Anton Sculean, and Maurizio Tonetti.
