The effect of 810-nm low-level laser therapy on pain caused by orthodontic elastomeric separators

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of 810-nm (DMC Equipamentos, Sao Carlos, Brazil) continuous wave low-level laser therapy (LLLT) on the pain caused by orthodontic elastomeric separators. Thirty-seven orthodontic patients (12 male and 25 female, aged 11-32 years, mean age = 24.97 years) participated in the study, including 20 subjects aged 18 years or more, and 17 under 18 years of age. Four elastomeric separators (Dentarum, Springen, Germany) were placed for the first permanent molars (distal and mesial), either for maxillary (22 patients) or mandibular (15 patients) arches; one quadrant was randomly selected and used as a placebo group (received no laser irradiation). After separator placement for each quadrant, patients received 10 doses (2 J/cm(2), 100 mW, 20 s) of laser irradiation on the buccal side (at the cervical third of the roots), for distal and mesial of the second premolars and first permanent molars, as well as distal of second permanent molars (five doses). The same procedure was repeated for the lingual or palatal side (five doses). After 24 h, patients returned to the clinic and received another 10 doses of laser irradiation on the same quadrant. Postseparation pain level recorded on a 10-cm visual analog scale for both jaws immediately (hour 0), and after 6, 24, 30 h, as well as on days 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Significant differences in the pain perception (PP) were found between the laser and placebo groups at 6, 24, 30 h, and day 3 of the experiment (P < 0.05). Friedman's test of multiple comparisons revealed significant differences in the PP among various time intervals for laser (chi-square = 173.407, P = 0.000) and placebo (chi-square = 184.712, P = 0.000) groups. In both groups, pain was highest at 6 and 30 h after placing elastomeric separators. No gender differences were observed in both groups. More pain was recorded in the mandible (P < 0.05) at 24 (laser group) and 30 h (both groups) after starting the experiment. The PP was significantly higher (P < 0.05) for the group aged 18 years or more, only at days 3 [both groups] and 4 [laser group only] of the experiment. The 810-nm continuous wave LLLT significantly reduced the PP in the first 3 days after orthodontic separation. However, the mean postseparation PP in both groups was low and wide ranges of PP scores were observed.

Influence of low-level laser therapy on the healing of human bone maxillofacial defects: A systematic review

“…A manual search for articles identified six more studies. Overall, 15 studies [1,6,8,9,14,15,[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] were selected for the analysis (Tables 1 and 2). Details of the search strategy are presented in Fig.…”

“…All studies included patients of both sexes. Eight studies applied the "split mouth" model as an experimental design [6,8,15,42,43,45,46,49] and in the others, researchers evaluated experimental groups in different subjects. Most of the studies included that they enrolled healthy patients with no systemic conditions.…”

“…The more commonly used laser device was gallium aluminium arsenide (GaAlAs), which was used in five studies [1,9,14,45,49], followed by (gallium arsenide (GaAs) [6,42,46]. Other types of lasers described included diode [15,43], aluminium-gallium indium-phosphide (InGaAlP) [44], semi-conductor [8] and soft laser [50].…”

The effects of low-level laser therapy on orthodontically induced root resorption

“…Osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation, the expression of receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa ligand (RANKL)-and RANK-positive cells, and bone remodeling [12] were increased during orthodontic tooth movement, and collagen synthesis was stimulated [12,13] via the therapy. Furthermore, Bicakci et al [10] and Eslamian et al [14] found that LLLT was efficient in reducing orthodontic post-adjustment pain.…”

Effect of 5% benzocaine gel on relieving pain caused by fixed orthodontic appliance activation. A double‐blind randomized controlled trial

“…TENS and vibratory stimulation have been advocated for relieving orthodontic pain, but their effectiveness has never been proven . Although LLLT and chewing bite wafer or gum were shown to be useful for this purpose , controversies about the results caused a decline in their popularity.…”