Clinical study on the efficacy of LED phototherapy for pain control in an orthodontic procedure

Abstract

Pain is an unpleasant and emotional subjective sensory experience that occurs during orthodontic procedures. Currently, LED phototherapy is an alternative to the use of laser light as analgesic agent due to similarity of response and lower cost. This case-control, quantitative, qualitative, and longitudinal study aimed to investigate the effect of IR LED phototherapy (λ846 ± 20 nm) in pain during the process of tooth separation during orthodontic treatment. After approval by the Institution Ethics Committee, 40 patients (30 female/10 male, 20-30 years old, average age 24.5 ± 2.6 years old) fulfilling the inclusion criteria entered the study and received a set of four visual analog scales (VAS) for scoring pain immediately, 48 h, 72 h, and 7 days after the insertion of the separating elastics. The patients were randomly distributed into two groups (experimental and control). The patients of experimental group received LED phototherapy (180 mW, 22 s, 4 J, 8 J/cm 0.36 W/cm, spot of 0.5 cm, spot diameter 0.8 cm) at the same times in which VAS was performed, and control patients were not irradiated. It was found that, in both groups, there was an increase in pain 48 h after insertion of the elastic tooth separator, decreasing 72 h after its installation and reached the lowest level of pain after 7 days. Comparison between groups showed that pain level in the LED group was always statistically significantly lower (p < 0.05), except for the time of installation (T1). The use of LED light was effective in significantly reducing the level of pain after insertion of the elastic tooth separators when compared to the control group.

Blue-light treatment reduces spontaneous and evoked pain in a human experimental pain model

“…The use of LED-based phototherapy for treating acute nociceptive and chronic pain disorders has increased significantly over the past years because of its low costs, ease of application, and lack of side effects. In particular, red and infrared LEDs have proven to be valuable tools in managing acute and chronic pain in conditions such as knee osteoarthritis, 12 back pain, 30,31 temporomandibular joint disorder, 27,45 orthodontic tooth separation, 16 and childbirth. 46,47 Moreover, green-light treatment has revealed promising results in treating chronic and episodic migraine.…”

“…9,11,14,19,21,42 In addition to low-level laser therapy, several preclinical and clinical studies have suggested the application of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for the treatment of various conditions involving acute nociceptive and chronic pain. 10,12,16,27,[30][31][32]40,[45][46][47]53 Although most studies have focused on the use of red and infrared light, few preclinical and clinical studies have explored the use of lower wavelength light. 22,33 In a rat model of acute nociceptive pain, green and to a lesser extent blue light (BL) exhibited thermal analgesic effects.…”

Pain Reduction during Rapid Palatal Expansion Due to LED Photobiomodulation Irradiation: A Randomized Clinical Trial

“…Our results are consistent and confirm this pattern. First of all, we observed that in the literature there were studies that analyzed the effectiveness of laser photobiomodulation in orthodontics during the positioning of elastic separators [25,26] or orthodontic archwires and evaluate their analgesic efficacy according to the protocols [27,28]. There were several works on the efficacy of lasers and LEDs, not only in orthodontics but even in other fields of dentistry, especially in the management of periodontitis and perimplantitis [29][30][31][32][33][34][35].…”

Music for Pain Control Following Orthodontic Initial Archwire Placement

“…Pain following orthodontic therapy is one of the most common reasons of avoidance of orthodontic therapy .9 There are various traditional methods of pain control following orthodontic initial arch wire placement such as pharmaceutical agents. [10][11][12] There are also various latest ways of pain control following initial orthodontic arch wire placement such as chewing gums, lasers, vibrations, ultrasonic rays, and low level laser therapy. [13][14][15] The result of the present study showed that there was insignificant difference in mean pain scores between the two groups with less pain scores in music group.…”