Management of peri-implantitis using a diode laser (810 nm) vs conventional treatment: a systematic review

The purpose of this study was to systematically assess clinical studies on the effect of using a diode laser in the treatment of peri-implantitis. Study question was “In patients with peri-implantitis around functional dental implants, can treatment by a diode Laser (810 nm) versus conventional treatment be effective in reducing the probing depth?”. The study included only randomized controlled clinical trials that involved patients with peri-implantitis. Included articles evaluated a diode laser (810 nm) used as monotherapy or as adjuvant therapy in the non-surgical treatment while their control group received conventional methods of treatment for peri-implantitis. Studies that involved other types of laser treatment options, surgical therapy, photodynamic therapy, case series, or case reports were excluded. Three electronic databases were searched for published articles from 2010 to 2018: PubMed/Medline, Cochrane, and Web of Science. The references were manually hand searched for relevant articles. The search initially identified 44 studies, which were filtered to yield a total of 3 eligible studies. All included studies compared laser treatment by a diode laser (810 nm) to conventional therapy by mechanical debridement for a follow-up period ranging from 6 months to 1 year, and risk of bias was assessed for each of the three included studies. A qualitative analysis of the three studies was conducted. This systematic review could not support the usage of a diode laser in the treatment of peri-implantitis. To confirm this assumption, more clinical trials with long-term follow-up periods are recommended.