Abstract & Overview
Background: For many years, injection of chemical solutions of anesthesia are well-known conventional method in dental practice. To date, various complications have known to be caused by this injection as well as the high extent of anxiety and fear that have shown to be related with this procedure. By the most recently, introduction of photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT) in the field of laser dentistry, many efforts have been made to evaluate the state of PBMT- anesthesia on different laser parameters. Objectives: This double blinded randomized clinical trial aims at evaluating the efficacy of PBMT with 660nm diode laser on elevation of post-treatment electric pulp testing (EPT) scores representing as an anesthesia, in contralateral healthy premolars. Methods and Materials: 19 participants have included in this study according to the inclusion criteria. Each participant had two caries-free healthy contralateral maxillary first premolars, of which one was chosen randomly to be treated with sham (placebo) irradiation or laser treatment (Diode laser, 660nm, 200 mW, 12 J/cm2, 30s). The EPT scores were evaluated two minutes before the laser/placebo treatment and right after the treatment. Results: 14 out of 19 (73.68%) sites which received laser treatment, showed more than 20% increase in EPT value, while in the placebo group 11 out of 19 (57.89%) sites that were treated with sham irradiation showed less than 20% change in EPT values after treatment. Therefore, there was a significant difference in EPT responses between the laser and placebo treatment groups (fisher’s exact=0.106, p-value=0.047). Besides, the regression coefficients of post and pre-treatment EPT scores of laser and placebo treatment groups were 0.4 (p-value=0.008) and 0.98 (p-value=0.008), respectively. No gender differences were found regarding the EPT responses. Conclusion: The diode laser, 660nm PBMT with the given protocol can effectively induce a pulpal anesthesia, while further studies should elucidate the precise mechanism of its action and the capacity for its clinical applicability in dental practice.