What are the risks of professional dental cleaning? | Professional dental cleaning: How often is it necessary?

What are the risks of professional dental cleaning?

Professional teeth cleaning is one of the most important preventive treatments to avoid tooth and mouth diseases. Nevertheless, bacteria are released into the oral cavity during the procedure, which can enter the bloodstream via small injuries in the gums (e.g. cracks). This poses a risk of infection, especially for patients with a weakened immune system. Therefore, professional tooth cleaning should only be carried out as often as necessary. Immunocompromised patients or patients with artificial heart valves are screened one hour before treatment with antibiotics.

What can you imagine by a PZR?

In order to improve brushing and adapt it to the individual conditions within the oral cavity of each patient, regular participation in a prophylaxis program is important. In the course of the individual appointments, the tooth surfaces are stained with special staining solutions or tablets and thus dental plaque is made visible. Most staining solutions are not only able to show deposits and solid tartar, but can also distinguish between fresh (younger than 48 hours) and older (older than 48 hours) plaque through specific staining behavior.

Subsequently, an individual oral hygiene concept tailored to the patient is designed to maintain the health of the teeth and gums. Please visit our main page on the topic: The procedure of a professional dental cleaningThe duration as well as the frequency of the treatment depends strongly on the situation of the teeth of the respective patient. On the one hand, the plaque situation (how many tooth deposits remain on the tooth surface despite brushing) must be taken into account when determining the cleaning intervals.

On the other hand, the specific risk of caries and inflammation in the area of the periodontium (periodontitis) of each patient also plays a decisive role.In addition, it must be noted that the transformation of soft plaque into hard tartar takes different lengths of time for each patient. Therefore, in order to prevent the appearance of tartar, which can sink below the gumline and cause damage to the tissue, it must be decided after each session how long it is possible to wait until the next professional tooth cleaning. In those patients who already suffer from inflammatory processes in the area of the gums (gingivitis) or other structures of the periodontium and therefore have deep gum pockets, the tooth cleaning must be repeated at comparatively shorter intervals.

In addition, general illnesses such as diabetes mellitus should also be taken into account when deciding how often professional tooth cleaning is useful or even necessary. Patients who have to take medication regularly or who are in life situations with a high stress factor can in many cases be severely impaired in their oral health despite careful brushing. Even in such cases, it makes sense to shorten the intervals between PZRs.

Taking all these factors into account, the dentist must develop a risk-dependent treatment plan tailored to the individual patient. If oral hygiene improves visibly, the intervals between professional tooth cleaning can also be extended. On average, however, a healthy adult can assume that professional tooth cleaning every six months has a positive effect on oral health.