抄録
Hypersensitive teeth are characterised by transient pains arising when mechanical, thermal, chemical or evaporative stimuli are applied to exposed dentine. The pain cannot be explained by dental defects or overt pulpal pathology, although the possibility of some inflammation in the pulps of hypersensitive teeth cannot be excluded. The clinical and morphological features can provide some clues about the aetiology of hypersensitive dentine. Current information suggests that hypersensitive dentine may be related to traumatic oral hygiene procedures and to factors such as regular consumption of acidic drinks. Dentine sensitivity may be assessed either in terms of the stimulus intensity necessary to elicit pain (sensory threshold) or as the subjectively rated degree of pain evoked by a standard stimulus. At present, many different methods of assessment are used in a variety of clinical trial designs, and this diversity of methodology makes it difficult to draw meaningful comparisons between different studies evaluating treatments for hypersensitive dentine. A greater degree of standardisation of methods is desirable in clinical trials to evaluate desensitising treatments.
