Background: Disruption and/or removal of the subgingival biofilm remain the cornerstone of periodontal therapy. A great variety of instruments can be used in order to perform scaling and root planing. A pilot study was undertaken to investigate clinical outcomes following surgical and non-surgical periodontal treatment including investigation of the efficacy of the new ultrasonic instrument VECTORTM (Fa. Dürr-Dental, Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany).
Methods: 30 patients with generalised chronic periodontitis were recruited and randomly allocated to three different treatment methods (n=10 in each group). The treatment modalities included scaling and root planing (SRP), modified Widman-flap (MWF) surgery, and non-surgical therapy with the new ultrasonic instrument VECTORTM. Clinical parameters (PPD, BoP and CAL) were recorded at baseline (i.e. before treatment) and at six months after therapy.
Results: At six months following therapy, significant improvements in all clinical parameters were identified in all three groups. PPD, BoP and CAL were significantly reduced in all groups, with no statistically significant differences between the different treatment procedures.
Conclusion: Notwithstanding the limitations of this pilot study, periodontal therapy outcomes with the new ultrasonic instrument VECTORTM were comparable to the results obtained following SRP and MWF surgery. No differences were observed between surgical and non-surgical therapy in any clinical parameter after six months.

Keywords: periodontal treatment, non-surgical therapy, surgical therapy, ultrasonic therapy, VECTOR