CLINICAL PERIODONTOLOGY AND IMPLANT DENTISTRY, FOURTH EDITION - Book Review

CLINICAL PERIODONTOLOGY AND IMPLANT DENTISTRY, FOURTH EDITION
2003
Blackwell Munksgaard, 2003, Jan Lindhe, Thorkild Karring & Niklaus P. Lang, Editors, ISBN #1405102365, Price: $164.99
Ira B. Lamster
Journal of Dental Research
Columbia University, School of Dental and Oral Surgery, ibl1@columbia.edu
The definition of "periodontology" has now been broadened and includes the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the periodontium, and the placement and maintenance of dental implants. As such, this new text gives this expanded definition some additional credibility by placing major emphasis on implantology in what was a textbook of periodontology. Tracing the bookÇƒÙs genealogy reveals that it began life some 20 years ago as the Textbook of Clinical Periodontology, with Jan Lindhe as the editor (the third and fourth editions had the same title). Other recent editions of major periodontology texts acknowledge the importance of implantology to periodontology, but the amount of material and detail devoted to implantology in this text is proportionally greater than that found in other texts. Nevertheless, the book is divided into three broad sections (basic concepts, clinical concepts, and implant concepts), and is really two booksÇƒÓsections 1 and 2 on periodontology, and section 3 on implantology. This dichotomy can be seen, for example, in the chapters on "dental plaque and calculus" and "microbiology of periodontal disease" which deal with bacterial infections about teeth and do not mention implants. This is not a serious criticism of the text. This new definition of "periodontology" will require time to mature, and ultimately there will be a true integration of the two rapidly evolving disciplines.
The text has 45 chapters and 56 contributors. Most of the authors are affiliated with European universities and are recognized leaders in their different subdisciplines. The chapters are generally very readable, comprehensive, and well-illustrated (but some digital photos have poor resolution). The range of topics is very broad, including comprehensive chapters on topics that are covered only superficially or not at all in other texts (i.e., breath malodor, genetics in relation to periodontitis). One could always find fault with a comprehensive text for the limited discussion of one or another topic (the sections on diabetes mellitus and smoking as risk factors for periodontitis or implant failure do not receive comprehensive coverage, and laboratory diagnosis of periodontal disease is discussed only briefly in the chapter on "Aggressive Periodontitis"). Nevertheless, this is a 1044-page text and is surprisingly compact.
Interested general dentists, post-doctoral students, and clinical periodontists should have this text in their library. This is now the textbook of periodontology/implantology with which others will be compared.