Blinding
blindness, tooth
STERILE, BLINDNESS
Clinical measurements and initial supragingival tooth cleaning were performed by a blinded calibrated examiner (U.M.D.), who was not aware in any of the cases of the type of treatment performed. All recordings were made without access to previous measurements to avoid bias.To ensure blindness, the treatment procedures were performed by one experienced periodontist (E.R.).The patients were not aware to which group they had been assigned. Periodontal treatment was performed in a sterile field (face drapes were used) to eliminate the possibility for patients to observe the procedure.A third investigator (I.N.), unaware of the type of treatment performed, processed coded data for statistical analysis.