Key words:
periodontitis, risk, management, maintenance, probing depth, pathogens, humoral immunity, cellular immunity, cytokines, genetics, socio-behavioral, review

The goal of periodontal therapy is to substantially lower the risk for future progression of periodontitis (Page and Beck, 1997). A literature search yielded more than 400 published articles related to periodontitis and risk assessment. Many of these published articles were primarily speculative in nature. Except for studies assessing the influence of individual periodontal risk factors at a tooth-site basis there appears to be few comprehensive studies assessing what risk factors are associated with periodontal disease at the subject level. Information on how clinicians assess periodontal risk for disease progression in the absence of care is almost non-existent. However, in one study it was concluded that there are significant disagreements between clinicians on the scale of risk assessment and that clinicians appear to predominantly base their risk assessments on radiographic evidence of bone loss, excluding most factors that have otherwise been associated with risk for future periodontal disease activity (Persson et al, 2003).