Minimizing Patient Morbidity Following Palatal Gingival Harvesting: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Study

This clinical study was conducted to evaluate the impact of different hemostatic treatments following palatal gingival harvesting on patient discomfort. Fifty patients who needed a mucogingival surgery requiring gingival graft harvesting were enrolled and randomly assigned to one of five groups: (1) a control group in which only sutures were applied; (2) a cyanoacrylate group; (3) a periodontal dressing material group; (4) a hemostatic gelatin sponge group; and (5) a group in which the gelatin sponge and cyanoacrylate were combined. In the 2 weeks following the procedures, perception of pain, healing, consumption of drugs, and willingness to repeat the procedure were recorded through visual analog scale (VAS) by patients. Over the 2 weeks, lower pain (VAS) was found in all test groups compared to the control group (P .01, value for time-group interaction). Notably, the gelatin sponge combined with cyanoacrylate group had very low pain (VAS ≤ 0.5 points) throughout the 14 days. The lowest healing scores at day 10 were associated with the control group (6.8 VAS points) in contrast to the four test groups (8.2 to 9.0 VAS points, P = .0001). Pain was inversely correlated with age (P .05). Pain also depended on the apicocoronal dimension of the graft: the higher the graft, the more pain was experienced by the participants (0.4 VAS points per 1 mm, P .05). Within the limitations of this study, palatal coverage appears to result in better outcomes when compared to suture alone. In particular, a double-layered protection of the palatal wound with a gelatin sponge combined with cyanoacrylate appeared to be the best option in reducing pain and postoperative discomfort.