Long‐term evaluation (20 years) of the outcomes of coronally advanced flap in the treatment of single recession‐type defects

Background Coronally advanced flap (CAF) has been considered as one of the most predictable and versatile root coverage procedures. Thus, the aims of this study are two‐fold: 1) to evaluate the long‐term outcomes following CAF in the treatment of gingival recession (GR); and 2) to explore the influence of several tooth/patient‐related factors on the stability of gingival margin at 5, 10, and 20 years after surgery. Methods Ninety‐four patients with 97 GR (73 Miller`s Class I and 24 Miller's Class III) were treated with CAF in a private practice between 1984 and 1996. Recession depth (RD), probing depth (PD), keratinized tissue (KT) width and patient/tooth‐associated variables were recorded for each GR at baseline, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years after surgery. Parametric, non‐parametric, and logistic regression statistics were used throughout the study Results A total of 72 patients with 72 GR were available for analysis at the 20‐year follow‐up examination (final patients’ dropout rate = 23.4%). Statistically significant improvements were found for RD in all evaluations (P