Effectiveness of laser therapy over topical desensitising agents in the treatment of dentinal hypersensitivity-A systematic review

AIM: To analyze the available scientific evidence on the effectiveness of laser therapy compared to the
topical desensitizing agents in the treatment of dentinal hypersensitivity.
Materials and methods: A broad literature search was performed using both electronic database and hand
search. The databases like COCHRANECENTRAL, MEDLINE, GOOGLE SCHOLAR, EBSCO HOST,
PROQUEST were used for online data search and hand search was performed in the central library of the
institute to identify the relevant articles. Articles that satisfied the inclusion criteria with description of
randomized clinical trials comparing lasers versus topical desensitising agents in the treatment of dentinal
hypersensitivity were included. These included studies were subjected to critical analysis following the
Cochrane Collaboration tool for evaluating the risk of bias.
Results: The initial search resulted in 65 articles; however, 31 of these articles were excluded because they
were duplicates and then 20 articles were excluded as they were not clinical trials. After analyzing the full
text from 24 clinical trials, 17 were excluded because they did not fulfill all the selection criteria. Our final
review included 7 studies. Of these 7 studies 1 study used Nd:YAG laser system, 4 studies used GaALAS
laser, one study used Er:YAG laser and one study used both CO2 and Er:YAG laser. Among the seven
studies 5 studies reported that the lasers alone or in combination with topical desensitising agents are
superior over topical desensitising agents used alone. Remaining 2 studies reported that both lasers and
topical desensitising agents were equally effective in reducing dentinal hypersensitivity.
Conclusion: With the constraints of limited available literature lasers alone or in combination with topical
desensitising agents showed promising results than topical desensitising agent alone and this desensitizing
efficacy of lasers was immediate and long lasting.
Key words: Lasers, laser therapy, topical desensitising agents, effectiveness, dentinal hypersensitivity,
systematic review