Low-level laser accelerating dental movements in orthodontics. Systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: according to scientific literature, does low-power laser promote acceleration of tooth movements during orthodontic treatment? Objective: to systematize the ability of the low-power laser to accelerate tooth movements during orthodontic treatment. Material and methods: a systematic review was carried out, a search using Boolean search engines on the PubMed platform. The keywords used for were: orthodontic movement, orthodontic tooth movement, orthodontic, orthodontic treatment, low level laser therapy, low level laser, laser therapy and the combination between them. The included investigations dealt with the issue of acceleration of tooth movement during orthodontic treatment using low-power laser, were from journals indexed in PubMed, clinical trials, in English, and corresponded to articles published since 2000 to date. Assessment of risk of bias was performed. The variables analyzed were: main author, title, year, type of article, journal, country of research, and whether the articles show that low-power laser increases tooth movement during orthodontic treatment. Results: 60% of the included studies conclude that the low-power laser accelerates tooth movement during orthodontic treatment, 30% of these did not find significant changes in relation to the groups studied with those of control and 10% resulted in dubious conclusions. Conclusions: although the results are encouraging due to the trend in which the low-power laser does accelerate orthodontic movements, the presence of a higher number of randomized clinical studies would be necessary for a specific clarification of the benefits that this therapy brings to the patient. sector.