Papers of the Week

Patients seeking endodontic treatment commonly present with reduced mechanical pain thresholds- mechanical allodynia (MA) in the offending teeth. In patients with moderate to severe pain, mechanical allodynia may manifest in the teeth contralateral to the offending teeth due to the onset of central sensitization (CS). We hypothesize that there are quantitative differences in MA and CS in patients with different pulp and periradicular diagnoses METHODS: Patients (n=70) receiving endodontic treatment in Graduate Endodontic Clinic at UTHSA and healthy volunteers (n=10) were included in this cross-sectional study. Mechanical pain threshold from molar teeth was measured by a digital bite force transducer on the offending tooth (ipsilateral) and contralateral tooth. Ipsi- and contralateral MA among different endodontic diagnoses were analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis with Dunn's post-hoc test and Student's t-test for differences between sexes. Multivariate regression models analyzed predictors for MA and CS.