LOW INTENSITY LASER THERAPY TO TREAT DENTIN HYPERSENSITIVITY - COMPARATIVE CLINICAL STUDY USING DIFFERENT LIGHT DOSES

Rosane de Fátima Zanirato Lizarellia ; Marcelo de Oliveira Mazzettob ; Vanderlei Salvador Bagnatoa aInstituto de Física de São Paulo, São Carlos, SP 13560-900. Brazil. bFaculdade de Odontologia de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, SP 14040-000, Brazil.

LaserWorld Guest Editorial, Nr 6 - 2000.

Dentin hypersensitivity is the most common patient's complain related to pain. In fact, this is a challenge to treat specially if conventional techniques are used. The possibility to treat pain through a low intensity laser give us an opportunity to solve this important clinical problem without promote a discomfort to patient. The main point here is not if this kind of treatment is anti-inflammatory to pulp and/or biostimulatory to production of irregular secondary dentin. The most important point here is to understand how much energy is necessary to reach conditions where to tooth become insensible to external stimulus. Our double-blinded study compared a group without laser (Placebo) with five other groups where different doses at 660 nm low intensity laser were employed. The final conclusion is that for 660 nm laser therapy, the doses from 0.13 to 2.0 J/cm2 were more effective than the others. The follow up care in this study was of 45 days.

Editorial note:
The above is an abstract of an interesting study on dentinal hypersensitivity. The doses ranged from 0.13 to 8 J/cmsq per point, and 2 J/cmsq seems to be best. Although the predetermined doses in this study indicated 2 J/cmsq as an optimal dose, the authors also have the clinical impression that higher doses (e g 8 J/cmsq) could be used at the first session, then using less on the following sessions. This hypothesis was not tested in the above study, though. The parameters in this study were: 3 therapy sessions, 72 hours in between. 1 point at the apex, 3 points at the tooth neck, in contact mode