Learning Objectives: 

• Recognize the benefits of biofilm removal for the patient, clinician, and dental practice.
• Identify how periodontal pathogens create and support a dysbiotic biofilm community.  
• Examine the role of desiccation therapy in biofilm dysregulation, debris removal, and hemostasis.
• Utilize various case presentations to validate, through interactive clinical discussions, the use of adjunctive desiccation therapy.

For years clinicians have searched for ways to make professional debridement easier and more effective and desiccation therapy with patented sulfonated compound is an effective tool that can be used in a wide range of clinical challenges. Pathogenic biofilms play a huge role in the development, and exacerbation, of inflammatory periodontal disease. Dysbiotic biofilm communities are difficult to disrupt and eradicate.  Novel therapies such as desiccation technology give clinicians an option to treat these biofilm communities. The desiccation process affects how deposits attach to a surface microscopically. Effective desiccation therapy results in a coagulated gelatinated mass of necrotic tissue, blood, and denatured calculus that is easier to remove with conventional nonsurgical periodontal debridement techniques.