The introduction of tissue regeneration into periodontal therapy has brought fundamental changes to dental treatment planning and enabled new treatment approaches. By contrast, resective therapy to eliminate pockets has the reputation of an antiquated treatment method. This article will illustrate that the two techniques are by no means mutually exclusive and must often indeed be used in combination. Since periodontal regeneration depends greatly on optimal patient cooperation and the skill of the dentist and works predictably only with certain defects, the range of indications until today has been limited and is restricted to three-walled defects, deep twowalled defects and grade two furcations defects. On the other hand, pocket elimination is indicated only in early stages of periodontitis and serves to create physiological tissue architecture to prevent further bone atrophy. The present study summarizes the principles of and indications for regenerative and resective periodontal therapy and explains the conditions necessary for a successful treatment outcome to counteract unrealistic expectations of regeneration and avoid undesirable / unwanted / unintended consequences of pocket elimination.

Keywords: tissue regeneration, periodontal regeneration, pocket elimination