The efficacy of minocycline microspheres in the treatment of chronic periodontitis: statistical vs clinical significance

This article addresses the benefits of using minocycline microspheres as an adjunct to conventional periodontal therapy. The author reviewed data from a large controlled clinical trial. The investigation indicated that scaling and root planing, plus minocycline microspheres, attained statistically significant improvements, with regard to several clinical parameters, when compared with scaling and root planing alone. Because it is the clinical meaningfulness of data that determines whether a therapy should be implemented, these data are interpreted with respect to their clinical relevance.