Cryotherapy Fights Inflammation in Recent Study

Dentistry Today

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Inflammation can present complications, particularly during surgical procedures. Cryotherapy, which decreases tissue temperature for therapeutic purposes, presents one potential treatment option as investigated by a multi-university research team.

The researchers instrumented 20 extracted single-rooted teeth to size 35/0.06 and subjected them to 2 different irrigation interventions with a repeated-measures design using 5% sodium hypochlorite first (control) and 2.5°C cold saline solution later (experimental). In both, 20 mL of the irrigant solution was delivered for 5 minutes with a microcannula attached to a Kerr EndoVac system inserted to the working length.

Next, the researchers recorded the initial and lowest temperatures in the apical 4 mm with a digital thermometer for both irrigants. They also analyzed the data with the repeated measure analysis of variance (Greenhouse-Geisser correction) and Bonferroni post hoc tests. They then assessed the differences in maintaining a -10°C temperature reduction for 4 minutes with the Fisher exact test.

Significant differences were found between the initial and lowest temperatures in both the control and experimental irrigation procedures (P < 0.001). However, the experimental intervention reduced the lowest temperatures almost 10 times that of the control. When maintaining a -10°C temperature reduction over 4 minutes, the teeth in the experimental group also sustained significantly better results (P = 3.047 ´ 10-10).

The researchers concluded that using cold saline solution as the final irrigant to reduce the external root surface temperature more than 10°C and maintaining it for 4 minutes may be enough to produce a local anti-inflammatory effect in the periradicular tissues. Their study, “Effect of Intracanal Cryotherapy on Reducing Root Surface Temperature,” was published in the Journal of Endodontics.

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