The development of clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic periodontitis in Belgium Elaboration des recommandations cliniques relatives au diagnostic et au traitement de la parodontite chronique en Belgique.

In many disciplines of medicine guidelines are developed for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. These are essentially intended to standardize care and to optimize communication between the general practitioner and the specialist. Guidelines have already been described in the literature for chronic periodontitis. However, given the unique conditions in Belgium, these may not be appropriate for the average dental practice. In this manuscript the development of Belgian clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic periodontitis is described. Basically, ten clinical questions were used as a basis for a thorough literature search. Evidence-based clinical guidelines were developed and adapted during three peer review sessions. In the final session Belgian specialists, who had all been invited, participated. This made sure that the scientific input was sufficiently transformed into clinical guidelines which are actually feasible today in Belgium.