Clinical effects of at-home bleaching along with desensitizing agent application

To evaluate whether the use of a desensitizing agent before at-home vital bleaching decreased this sensitivity.

After informed consent, 60 subjects, 18-31 years of age, participated in the study and were divided into desensitizer and placebo groups. Before bleaching treatment with 16% carbamide peroxide (CP), a placebo or desensitizer gel (DG; 5% potassium nitrate and 2% sodium fluoride) was applied in the tray and used by patients for 10 minutes. Color was evaluated at the baseline, second and fourth week following the initial delivery of bleaching trays. Color change was measured using the Vita Classic Shade Guide arranged by value. The subjects recorded their perception of tooth sensitivity on a 0-4 scale. The bleaching treatment at each week recall was evaluated by repeated measures ANOVA. The percentage of patients with tooth sensitivity was evaluated by Chi-square test. The tooth intensity ratio (% of days with tooth sensitivity) as well as the tooth sensitivity intensity between groups were analyzed using chi-square and the Mann-Whitney tests, respectively (alpha = 0.05).

The use of DG did not affect the bleaching efficacy of the CP (P > 0.05). The prevalence and intensity of tooth sensitivity was similar for both groups (P > 0.05). However, participants from the placebo group had sensitivity in 33.6% of the bleaching days, which was significantly higher than the DG experimental group (20.1%) (P < 0.05).