Comparative study of indigenously prepared and imported, demineralized, freeze-dried, irradiated bone allograft in the treatment of periodontal infrabony defects

Demineralized freeze-dried bone allograft (DFDBA) has been used extensively in periodontal therapy. Questions have been raised however, about the osteogenic potential of the variety of grafts available. In India the cost factor is another important consideration. The aim of this study therefore was to evaluate the clinical efficiency of the low priced, indigenously prepared DFDBA obtained from the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) Tissue Bank, in periodontal regeneration in infrabony periodontal defects, as compared to DFDBA obtained from the Pacific Coast Tissue Bank (DEMBONE). The latter was used as the control. 16 patients with bilaterally similar periodontal infrabony defects were selected, and randomly allotted to the test and control groups. At baseline, using standardized protocol, recession, probing depths (PD), and clinical attachment levels (CAL) were measured, following which periodontal surgery was carried out, with placement of the respective graft materials. Patients were recalled after 6 months for re-assessment. Statistically significant improvement was obtained for PD reduction and CAL gain for both groups (p < 0.05). However, no significant difference was observed between the test and control groups. It was therefore concluded that both the materials from different tissue banks are equally effective clinically, with the test material being additionally cost effective.