Strategies for managing the endodontic pain patient

The most common form of orofacial pain is odontalgia, or toothache. This painful condition afflicts about 12-14 percent of the population, or about 2.5 million Texans (1-4). This is an important clinical challenge since our patients have high expectations for receiving the latest advances in health care, and successful pain control in endodontics is no exception. Fortunately, research has provided new approaches for delivering more effective pain control treatments in an efficient and reproducible manner. This article provides an overview of several treatment strategies for managing acute odontogenic pain; due to space limitations, interested readers are encouraged to use the references for more extensive discussions on these topics.