Detection of Porphyromonas gingivalis and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans after systemic administration of Amoxicillin plus Metronidazole as an adjunct to non-surgical periodontal therapy: A Systematic Review and meta-analysis.

Objective: To evaluate the variations in the detection of Porphyromonas gingivalis and/or Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans before and after systemic administration of amoxicillin plus metronidazole in association with non-surgical periodontal therapy.Background: The adjunctive use of antibiotics has been advocated to improve the clinical outcomes of non-surgical periodontal therapy. However, no systematic review has investigated the microbiological benefit of this combination. Material and Methods: An electronic search was conducted up to December 2015. Randomized clinical trials comparing the number of patients testing positive for Porphyromonas gingivalis and/or Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans before and after non-surgical periodontal therapy with (test group) or without (control group) amoxicillin plus metronidazole were included. The difference between groups in the variation of positive patients was calculated using the inverse variance method with a random effects model.Results: The frequency of patients positive for Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans was decreased by 30 % (p=0.002) and by 25 % (p=0.01) in the test group compared to the control group at 3-month and 6-month follow-up, respectively. Similar findings were observed when considering the frequency of patients positive for Porphyromonas gingivalis, with a reduction by 28 % (p