Effect of ultrasound therapy for orthodontic pain control: A pilot randomized clinical trial

Orthodontic pain has emerged to be the most common side effect to be reported in the course of fixed appliance therapy, with prevalence of more than 70 per cent of patients and may undermine the adherence to treatment. Therefore, it is of interest to controlled pilot trial that tested the analgesic effect of therapeutic ultrasound on pain management in the first stage of alignment. Seven orthodontic patients (15-25 years old) with Class I malocclusion were randomly assigned to the ultrasound (1 MHz, 0.5 W/cm², pulsed mode) or sham treatment during 10 minutes on the second day after the placement of archwires. A visual analog scale (VAS) was used to measuring levels of pain before and after intervention. The ultrasound group recorded statistically significant difference of mean VAS scores of 5.8 + 1.2 to 2.1 + 0.9 (p<0.001), a 63.8% reduction in pain whereas the control group recorded a slight change of 5.6 + 1.1 to 5.2 + 1.0 (p=0.18). No side effects were noticed. Therapeutic ultrasound seems to be a safe, non-invasive and effective modality in the management of orthodontic pain and its use should be applied in larger studies.