Gingival stippling is considered to be a barometer which indicates the condition of the gingiva, but hardly any practical review has been made on the correlation between gingival stippling and other gross findings of the gingiva.
We authors had an opportunity of observing the clinical findings of the gingiva of malocclusion patients through a mass dental examination. The mutual relationship between the gross findings of the gingiva and gingival stippling was reviewed and the interesting findings are presented.
In this study the gingiva of the frontal teeth of 1047 malocclusion patients, comprised of 618 males and 429 females whose age ranged from 14 to 57, was examined.
1) The following trend was noted that the normal gingiva develops into interdental papillitis, gingivitis marginalis, alveolar pyorrhea, and periodontal tissue lesions with age, and consequently gingival stippling decreases and disappears.
2) The prevalence of gingival stippling with sex and age combined was (1) 93.9% in normal gingiva, (2) 47.6% in interdental papillitis, (3) 11.6% in gingivitis marginalis, and (4) 5.9% in alveolar pyorrhea.
3) In classifying the inflammatory symptoms into (1) gingiva with no reddening nor swelling, (2) gingiva with appreciable reddening but no swelling, (3) gingiva with appreciable swelling but no reddening, (4) gingiva with slight reddening and swelling, and (5) gingiva with remarkable reddening and swelling, it was found that the prevalence of gingival stippling gradually decreased from (1) toward (5), demonstrating a close relationship between inflammatory symptoms and the presence of gingival stippling.
4) Gingival stippling was not observed in some case among the patients who are considered to have normal gingiva, while gingival stippling was sometimes seen even in cases with alveolar pyorrhea.
These results indicate that the findings regarding gingival stippling are very valuable in the diagnosis of periodontal diseases, that danger is involved in evaluating the condition of the gingiva merely by the presence of gingival stippling, and that a synthetic review including a detailed study of other clinical findings of the gingiva should be made in the diagnosis.
