Impact of Low-Level Laser Therapy on Pain perception During Orthodontic Maxillary Incisor Intrusion with Connecticut’s Intrusion Arch: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract

Aim: To assess the impact of low-level laser therapy on pain perception during intrusion of the maxillary incisors using Connecticut's intrusion arch in excessive overbite cases.

Methods: parallel groups randomized clinical trial with a 1:1 allocation ratio. Patients aged 12 to 19 years had an overbite greater than 40%, indicating the need for maxillary incisor intrusion using Connecticut's intrusion arch. Patients were recruited from the Department of Orthodontics outpatient clinics at the Faculty of Dental Medicine at AL-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. Eighteen patients were randomly assigned to two groups: one (test) group received low-level laser therapy after maxillary intrusion using Connecticut's intrusion arch. In contrast, the other group (control group) received no laser therapy. Post-operative pain levels were measured using a 10 cm visual analog scale immediately after the first intrusive arch placement and again after three and seven days. Continuous data were presented as means and standard deviations. The differences between the two groups were analyzed using an independent Welch t-test, while intragroup comparisons were evaluated using a one-way repeated measures ANOVA test.

Results: Low-level laser therapy had a statistically non-significant lower pain levels than the control group in all time points (p > 0.05). However, the pain levels were significantly reduced over time in each group (p < 0.05). Multiple pairwise paired t-tests revealed significant differences in all comparisons between different time points (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: Based on the current results, low-level laser therapy using the specified parameters and protocol has a minimal impact on the pain experienced during the intrusion of maxillary incisors with Connecticut`s intrusion arch.