Regenerative Therapy of Furcations in Human Clinical Studies

This chapter reviews the evidence for the effectiveness of regenerative therapy for the treatment of furcation defects in different clinical scenarios, in order to address the question: what has been achieved so far? A variety of outcome measures can be considered to assess the effectiveness of regenerative furcation therapies. After clinical case series had demonstrated promising results for guided tissue regeneration (GTR) therapy in furcation defects using expanded PTFE barriers, several randomized controlled clinical trials compared GTR therapy with open-flap debridement in human degree II furcation defects. The suggested treatment sequence is as follows: patient selection, tooth selection, and regenerative periodontal surgery. It emerges clearly from the chapter that the main challenge for regenerating furcation defects is presented by improving the predictability in degree II furcation involvement (FI) and even more by achieving regeneration in degree III furcation defects.