Alendronate has been proposed as a local and systemic drug treatment used as an adjunct to scaling and root planing (SRP) for the treatment of periodontitis. However, its effectiveness has yet to be conclusively established. The purpose of the present meta-analysis was to assess the effectiveness of SRP with alendronate on periodontitis compared to SRP alone.

Five electronic databases were used by 2 independent reviewers to identify relevant articles from the earliest records up to September 2016. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing SRP with alendronate to SRP with placebo in the treatment of periodontitis were included. The outcome measures were changes in bone defect fill, probing depth (PD), and clinical attachment level (CAL) from baseline to 6 months. A fixed-effect or random-effect model was used to pool the extracted data, as appropriate. Mean differences (MDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. Heterogeneity was assessed using the Cochrane χ² and I² tests.

After the selection process, 8 articles were included in the meta-analysis. Compared with SRP alone, the adjunctive mean benefits of locally delivered alendronate were 38.25% for bone defect fill increase (95% CI=33.05–43.45; P <0.001; I²=94.0%), 2.29 mm for PD reduction (95% CI=2.07–2.52 mm; P <0.001; I²=0.0%) and 1.92 mm for CAL gain (95% CI=1.55–2.30 mm; P <0.001; I²=66.0%). In addition, systemically administered alendronate with SRP significantly reduced PD by 0.36 mm (95% CI=0.18–0.55 mm; P <0.001; I²=0.0%) and increased CAL by 0.39 mm (95% CI=0.11–0.68 mm; P =0.006; I²=6.0%).

The collective evidence regarding the adjunctive use of alendronate locally and systemically with SRP indicates that the combined treatment can improve the efficacy of non-surgical periodontal therapy on increasing CAL and bone defect fill and reducing PD. However, precautions must be exercised in interpreting these results, and multicenter studies evaluating this specific application should be carried out.