Ulutas Med J The Ulutas Medical Journal Ulutas Med J 2149-0430 2149-388X Hayriye Zehra Ulutaş 10.5455/umj.20150420113414 184798 Letter to the Editor Child Psychiatry Letter to Editor: Gingival Depigmentation: Esthetic enhancement made simple and Efficient https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5393-5251 Kumar Santhosh Conceptualization Data curation Formal analysis Funding acquisition Investigation Methodology Project administration Resources Software Supervision Validation Visualization Writing – original draft Writing – review & editing 1 https://ror.org/02xzytt36 Department of Periodontology, Manipal Collegeof Dental Sciences, Manipal University, Manipal, Udupi District, Karnataka, India 30 06 2015 2015 1 2 50 50 24 05 2015 25 05 2015 01 06 2015 © 2015 The Author(s) 2015 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 licence.

With great interest, I read the article titled “Gingival Depigmentation: Esthetic Enhancement Made Simple and Efficient” by Vivek K. Adlakha, Nikhil Srivastava, Preetika Chandna, and Jyotika Grover. The work done was commendable. The gingival pigmentation becomes an esthetic problem when the pigmentation is not similar to the skin pigmentation and when the pigmentation is revealed when the patient smiles. Hence, it is necessary to record the patient's smile. Gingival depigmentation ideally is done after appropriate esthetic treatment is completed. If the patient's smile shows excessive gingival display, a gingivectomy is warranted before any other esthetic enhancement procedures. Electrocautery is one of the many procedures for gingival depigmentation. Disadvantages include burning and excessive tissue removal if copious irrigation is used. Cryosurgery and lasers have recently been used and appear to be better choices for depigmentation.

 Gingival Depigmentation Esthetic enhancement Cryosurgery Electrocautery Funding information was not reported in the published version of this article. Letter to the Editor

With great interest I read the article titled “Gingival Depigmentation: Esthetic Enhancement Made Simple and Efficient” by Vivek K. Adlakha, Nikhil Srivastava, Preetika Chandna, Jyotika Grover. The work done was commendable ( 1 ). The gingival pigmentation becomes esthetic problem when the pigmentation is not similar to the skin pigmentation and when the pigmentation is revealed when the patient smiles ( 2 ). Hence it is necessary to record the smile of the patient. Gingival depigmentation ideally is done after appropriate esthetic treatment is completed ( 2 ).

When the smile of the patient is recorded and if the patient has excessive gingival display it would warrant a gingivectomy before undergoing any other esthetic enhancement procedures ( 3 ). Electocautery is one of the many procedures for gingival depigmentation. The disadvantage of the procedure includes burning, excessive tissue removal if copius irrigation is used ( 4 ). Recently used cryo surgery and lasers appear to be better choice for depigmentation ( 5 ).

 References Adlakha VK, Srivastava N, Chandna P, Grover J. Gingival Depigmentation: Esthetic Enhancement Made Simple and Efficient. Ulutas Med J. 2015; 1(1): 7-9. David A. Garber & Maurice A. Salama. The aesthetic smile diagnosis and treatment. Periodontol 2000 1996;11(1):18-28. Lee Earnesto A. Aesthetic Crown Lengthening: Classification, Biologic Rationale and Treatment Planning Considerations. Pract Proced Aesthet Dent. 2004;16:769-78. Nader N Massarweh, Ned Cosgriff, Douglas P Slakey. Electrosurgery: History, Principles and current and future uses. J Am Coll Surg 2006;202(3):520-530. Lin YH, Tu YK, Lu CT, Chung WC, Huang CF, Huang MS, Lu HK. Systematic review of treatment modalities for gingival depigmentation: a random-effects Poisson regression analysis. J Esthet Restor Dent 2014;26(3):162-178. W Department of Periodontology, Manipal Collegeof Dental Sciences, Manipal University, Manipal, Udupi District, Karnataka, India Santhosh Kumar