Tunnel Surgery Combined With a Micro Connective Tissue Graft for the Treatment of Multiple Adjacent Gingival Recession Defects: a Multi-center Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.

Gingival recession defects (GRD) present as a partial exposure of the root surface resulting from gingival margin displacement apical to the cemento-enamel junction (CEJ). A variety of surgical methods have been reported to reestablish root coverage, including tunneling techniques and coronally and laterally advanced flaps. As the presence of thin gingival tissues is one of the predisposing factors for GRD, the adjuvant use of subepithelial connective tissue grafts (CTGs) during the surgical correction is often considered. CTGs are thought to contribute to phenotype modification and stability of treatment outcomes and studies have indicated favorable esthetic results and high degrees of root coverage (documented range: 69% to 97%). The procedure does, however, require a suitable donor site. When multiple adjacent teeth exhibit GRDs, the preferred surgical approach should offer the greatest possible root coverage, while limiting drawbacks (i.e., patient morbidity, esthetic problems). Thus, one of the challenges related to coverage of multiple GRDs is the scarcity of donor tissue. In cases when large CTGs are required, additional surgical procedures may even be necessary. As an alternative, a modification of the harvested CTG into multiple "micro-CTGs" is proposed for the treatment of multiple adjacent GRDs (MAGRD). In the present study, the effectiveness and predictability of micro-CTGs will be evaluated in direct comparison to conventional CTGs.

The investigators hypothesise that no statistically significant differences will be observed in terms of % root coverage (primary outcome) and patient satisfaction at 12 months (non-inferiority).

The investigators hypothesise that subjects in the test group (micro-CTG) will report significantly lower morbidity at 1 and 2 weeks post-surgery when compared to controls (superiority).