Objectively Diagnosing Pulpitis: Opportunities and Methodological Challenges in the Development of Point-of-Care...

Area of Science:

• Dentistry
• Biomarkers
• Inflammation

Background:

• Pulpitis, an inflammatory dental pulp response, traditionally leads to root canal treatment (RCT).
• Current clinical guidelines favor vital pulp preservation over RCT when feasible.
• Accurate pulp diagnosis is essential for guiding treatment and improving outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the limitations of current point-of-care (PoC) diagnostic tools for pulpitis.
• To explore the potential of molecular biomarkers for objective pulpitis assessment.
• To emphasize the need for developing novel PoC diagnostic assays for pulpitis.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on pulpitis diagnosis and molecular biomarkers.
• Analysis of altered expression of chemokines, cytokines, proteases, and growth factors in pulpitis.
• Consideration of intraoperative sample collection during routine dental procedures.

Main Results:

• Current PoC tools for pulpitis are subjective and lack diagnostic discrimination.
• Molecular biomarkers demonstrate altered expression patterns during pulpitis.
• Several potential biomarkers exist for next-generation diagnostic tools.

Conclusions:

• There is an urgent need for objective, chairside diagnostic assays for pulpitis.
• Molecular biomarker assessment offers a promising avenue for dynamic pulpitis analysis.
• Collaboration among researchers, industry, and clinicians is vital for developing these assays.