References

Gibson M, Sharif MO, Smith A, Saini P, Brunton PA A practice-based randomised controlled trial of the efficacy of three interventions to reduce dentinal hypersensitivity. J Dent. 2013; 41:668-674

Abstract

From Volume 41, Issue 5, June 2014 | Page 422

Authors

Anne Morgan

Locum Consultant in Paediatric Dentistry Charles Clifford Dental Hospital

Articles by Anne Morgan

Abstract

The findings of this trial carried out in general dental practice suggest that desensitizing toothpastes and professionally applied dentine bonding agents reduce the pain associated with dentine hypersensitivity, with dentine-bonding agents resulting in the greatest improvement.

Article

Dentine hypersensitivity is defined as pain arising from exposed dentine, typically in response to an external stimulus, which cannot be explained by any other dental disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of three different interventions in reducing the symptoms of dentinal hypersensitivity over a 6-month period. The study design was a single-blind, parallel group, randomized controlled trial carried out in general dental practice by a single investigator. In total, 75 adult patients were recruited from the same general dental practice to participate, with only 3 patients not completing the trial. In total 72% of the participants were female. All participants self-reported that they had at least one sensitive tooth. The participants were randomly allocated to one of three treatment arms: non-desensitizing (regular) toothpaste; desensitizing toothpaste; and professionally applied dentine-bonding agent (with regular toothpaste provided for home use). It is not clear whether there was only a single application of the dentine-bonding agent. All patients recorded the severity of their sensitivity symptoms at baseline, 2 weeks, 3 months and 6 months using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). The key finding was that mean VAS scores for sensitivity were statistically significantly reduced in the densensitizing toothpaste and the dentine-bonding agent group (p<0.001) across all time points. Further statistical analysis demonstrated that the scores for the dentine-bonding agent were significantly lower than for both regular toothpaste (p<0.001) and densensitizing toothpaste (p<0.001), suggesting it as the intervention that resulted in the greatest improvement in sensitivity symptoms. Additionally, the mean scores for desensitizing toothpaste were significantly lower than for non-desensitizing toothpaste (p<0.05).