Partial Versus Whole Mouth Grading of Disclosed Plaque

Objective: This research compared a 32-site partial mouth plaque grading to the conventional 168-site whole mouth method. Methods: A trained plaque examiner assessed whole mouth plaque levels from 100 healthy dentate adults with medication-induced xerostomia. Whole mouth disclosed plaque was assessed using a 6-point categorical scale (MQH), the Turesky modification of the Quigley Hein index. Partial mouth grading scores collected from the facial anterior sites (visible sites) were compared to whole mouth (all sites) scores. Intra-class correlations (ICC) and 95% lower confidence bounds (LCB) were calculated using a 0-to-1 scale, where 0 represented no agreement and 1 represented perfect agreement. Results: The study population ranged in age from 20-86 years, and exhibited considerable diversity with respect to gender and ethnicity. All data were included in the analysis. There was considerable variation in individual MQH plaque, with subject mean scores ranging from 1.6 – 4.3 for all sites, compared to 1.4 – 4.8 for visible sites. Mean (SD) MQH plaque scores were 3.26 (0.56) at all sites and 3.20 (0.64) at visible sites, and did not differ significantly. Subject MQH scores (all versus visible) were significantly (p<0.0001) well-correlated (r = 0.751). The ICC was 0.743, with a 95% LCB of 0.659. Conclusion: Data from a large cross-sectional study showed that an efficient, partial mouth plaque measurement at visible sites (19% of total) was comparable to whole mouth plaque scores.