2015 Volume 58 Issue 4 Pages 300-305
Purpose: Dentin hypersensitivity is due to exposure of dentinal tubules, which occur through a hard tissue defect and/or gingival recession. The dentinal tubules located on the affected area tend to be larger in number and size than those on the unaffected area. In the current study, toothpaste containing zinc stearate was administrated to the patients with dentin hypersensitivity and the efficacy of the zinc stearate, which could occlude dentinal tubules as reported in previous study in vitro, was examined.
Methods: Twenty five patients were recruited as subjects at the Tsurumi University Dental Hospital. The hypersensitive status of the subjects was distributed between grade 2 and 3 according to the Schiff Air Index. The subjects were divided randomly into the experimental group and the control group. The former group was given the toothpaste containing potassium nitrate and zinc stearate, whereas the latter was given the toothpaste without zinc stearate. The subjects of both groups were instructed to brush their teeth more than twice a day in the usual way. The affected sites of the subjects in both groups were blown with air of 18°C and 0.3 MPa before the use of the toothpaste, after 2 weeks and 4 weeks from the beginning of the trial. The visual analogue scale (VAS) to evaluate hypersensitive status was measured at every evaluation point. The effect of toothpaste was statistically analyzed by SPSS version 22.
Results: The VAS values of both groups showed sequentially significant reduction. Although there was no significant difference in the VAS values between both groups at the baseline and 2 weeks after administration of the toothpaste, the VAS value of the experimental group reduced significantly compared to that of the control group after 4 weeks.
Conclusion: This study suggested that the toothpaste containing zinc stearate relieved discomfort from dentin hypersensitivity in longitudinal administration.
