In 1978 a report by the World Health Organizations led to the establishment of the Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN) and periodontal probe called WHO 621 ("Trintity") was also put forward.
It has a ball end of diameter 0.5 mm and a first coloured band at 3.5 - 5.5 mm calibration dimension usually CPITN E probe.
The CPITN was majorly designed to provide a universal standard for clinical practice and research, but various different periodontal screening tools were extracted from it such as the BPE, PSR,CPI and so on.
The Basic Periodontal Examination (BPE) is widely used in the United Kingdom and New Zealand while the Primary Essential Periodontal Examination (PEPE) is used in Australia.
Now let's discuss about the CPITN as a clinical procedure itself,
CPITN was introduced by six scientists after joint working committee of the WHO and FDI in 1982.
It was primarily developed to check , survey and evaluate periodontal treatment needs and requirements rather than finding out about the past and present periodontal health status which includes recession of gingival margin, alveolar bone loss, attachment losses and so on.
"The CPITN probe The periodontal examinations involved recordings on all surfaces of all the teeth for the presence or absence of any 6 mm or deeper periodontal pockets (Code 4), any 4-5 mm pockets (Code 3), calculus and/or overhanging margins of restorations (Code 2), gingival bleeding on gentle probing (Code 1), and healthy sextants (Code 0)"Source
Treatment needs denotes that CPITN assesses and evaluate conditions that were generally responsive to routine treatment plans and not advance treatment procedures
SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF CPITN
CPITNΒ as a clinical procedure is recommended for use mainly in epidemiological surveys of periodontal health conditions.
It assists in planning and monitoring of periodontal care outreaches and required dental personnel for the community programmes
CPITN records and documents the common treatable conditions namely which are as follows;
1- Periodontal Pockets
2- Gingival Inflammation
3- Plaque retentive factors such as overhang restoration, exposed root surfaces and so on.
4- Dental Calculus
It doesn't records irreversible changes such as recession or other deviation from periodontal health such as mobility, loss of periodontal attachment, bones loss and so on as these conditions require advance treatment procedures and not reversible with ordinary professional scaling or simple modalities.
One of the reasons third molars otherwise known as wisdom teeth are not included in the sextant divisions is their susceptibilities to impactions, congenital absence, pericoronitis among others which makes them unfit for assessment for the treatment needs. Though sometimes they could be used when they represent the seconds in the dental arch.
Advantages of CPITN
1- Simplicity
2- Speed
3- Universal uniformity and global acceptance
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