Efficacy of 1.23% Acidulate Phosphate Fluoride Gel on Tooth Sensitivity During Home Bleaching Treatment

One of the side effects of dental home bleaching is hypersensitivity. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of the application of 1.23% acidulated phosphate fluoride (APF) gel before/after daily home bleaching with carbamide peroxide (CP) on tooth hypersensitivity during 14 days of treatment.

This randomized controlled clinical trial evaluated 24 patients randomly assigned to three groups (n = 8). Group 1 (control) used 20% CP gel for at least 6 hours per night for 2 weeks. Group 2 (APF-bleaching) used 1.23% APF for 4 minutes before using the CP gel. Group 3 (bleaching-APF) used APF gel for 4 minutes after using the CP gel. The bleaching procedure was the same in all three groups and lasted for 2 weeks. The patients were asked to record the severity of their TH daily using a 0-3 numerical severity scale. Data were analyzed by ANOVA and t-test (α = 0.05).

The mean TH score was 1.3 in the control group, 0.65 in APF-bleaching, and 0.5 in bleaching-APF (p value = 0.019) group. The mean TH score of the control group was significantly higher than that of the APF-bleaching (p value = 0.028) and bleaching-APF (p value = 0.008) groups. The TH score did not significantly change during the 14-day treatment period in the control or bleaching-APF groups. TH significantly decreased with time in the APF-bleaching group (p value < 0.05).

Application of 1.23% APF gel before bleaching significantly decreased the severity of TH due to bleaching with 20% CP but could not completely prevent it.