“50% of the Italian population suffers from some form of periodontitis, of which at least 13-15% live with severe and disabling forms that lead to the loss of teeth and chewing function, so it is a pathology that has a very important impact on the patient’s quality of life and on the coffers of our National Health Service. For these reasons, early diagnosis is everything”. This is what Rodolfo Gianserra, treasurer of the Italian Society of Periodontology and Implantology (SIDP), told Adnkronos Salute, on the occasion of National Periodontitis Day, which is celebrated today.
It is a pathology “that can be treated and prevented, especially in the initial forms – assures Gianserra – however, the later the diagnosis, the higher the costs for the treatments that the patient will have to undergo”. Prevention and constant hygiene “start at home with good procedures”, with brushing your teeth 3 times a day. “To this is added the hygiene performed by the dentist or hygienist, in this way we make periodontitis practically curable and preventable with minimal economic costs”. If instead “we have to treat more advanced forms of periodontitis of stage 3 or stage 4 – the specialist points out – this involves having to do professional hygiene therapies, surgical interventions, replacements of dental elements, prostheses, implants, with costs that today are decidedly very high”.
Early diagnosis presupposes that there is awareness on the part of the citizen. “Unfortunately this awareness is not as there as we would like – Gianserra laments – We at Sidp work to make the citizen participate in their own diagnosis and treatment by focusing on information, through our toll-free number 800144979, active all year round, and by promoting the National Day of periodontitis. All initiatives that serve to raise awareness among the population on this pathology that is still little known, but that can be prevented and treated”. To find out more, the citizen must first go to his or her dentist and “request a periodontal visit, during which it is not enough to be looked at superficially in the mouth, but it is necessary to use a ruler, a millimetre probe, which allows the dentist to make an early diagnosis. So this is the first thing that all citizens should already begin to understand”. This information “is all available on the website of the Italian Society of Periodontology and Implantology ((https://www.sidp.it/) and on www.gengive.org”, he concludes.
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