Assessment of the Ability of Desensitizing and Conventional Mouth Rinses to Promote Dentin Tubule Occlusion

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of desensitizing and conventional mouth rinses on dentin tubule occlusion. Dentin hypersensitivity was simulated by EDTA application for five minutes. The specimens were randomly allocated into the following groups: desensitizing mouth rinses (Colgate Sensitive, Elmex Sensitive Professional, Listerine Advanced Defense Sensitive, Sensodyne Cool Mint); conventional mouth rinses (Colgate Plax, Elmex Caries Protection, Listerine Anticaries, Sensodyne Pronamel); a negative control (C-: distilled water); and Clinpro XT Varnish was the positive control (C+). Subsequently, the specimens were submitted to an erosive or abrasive challenge (performed separately) and to an erosive/abrasive cycling for five days (n=10 for each challenge). After treatment, challenges, and cycling, the specimens were analyzed in an environmental scanning electron microscope to verify the number of open dentin tubules (ODTs), counted by using Image J software (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA). Data were analyzed by the Kruskal-Wallis, Friedman and Dunn tests, with Bonferroni correction (α=0.05). Groups did not differ at baseline (p>0.05). At the post-treatment, erosion and abrasion stages, C+ was the only group that showed a reduction in ODTs compared to C-(p<0.05). In the other groups, numbers did not differ significantly from C- (p>0.05). After cycling, none of the groups exhibited significant reduction in ODTs other than C- (p>0.05); however, C+, Listerine Anticaries, and Colgate Plax had a lower number of ODTs than Listerine Sensitive and Sensodyne Pronamel. No mouth rinse was able to promote significant occlusion of the dentin tubules after treatment and the challenges. C+ was the only product that effectively promoted tubular occlusion, but this effect did not withstand several erosive and abrasive challenges.