Low-Level Laser Eased Orthodontic Pain but Did Not Reduce Root Resorption in RCT

Edited by Dentaltown staff

Low-level laser therapy reduced short-term pain during fixed orthodontic treatment but did not reduce orthodontically induced inflammatory root resorption or shorten leveling and alignment, according to a randomized controlled trial published Nov. 5 in the Journal of the World Federation of Orthodontists.

The single-center, double-blinded trial randomly assigned 40 patients aged 13 to 24 to low-level laser therapy or a sham laser. The laser group received 980-nm diode laser applications to the maxillary incisors at 100 mW and 8 J/cm², for 8 seconds per tooth, on days 0, 3, 7, and 14 and then monthly for 12 months.

Root resorption, measured as root length on periapical radiographs at baseline, six months, and 12 months, increased significantly over the year in both groups, with no overall difference between them. At two individual teeth, the laser group showed greater resorption: the maxillary right lateral incisor over the first six months and the maxillary left central incisor over 12 months (P < .05).

Pain scores on a visual analog scale were significantly lower with the laser during the first seven days of both leveling and alignment and en-masse retraction (P < .001), except on days five and six of leveling and alignment.

Treatment pace did not change. Leveling and alignment took a mean of 123.8 days in the laser group and 126.2 days in the sham group (P = .487).

The authors concluded that low-level laser therapy did not reduce root resorption or shorten leveling and alignment but significantly attenuated short-term pain, supporting its use as a nonpharmacological analgesic adjunct in orthodontics.

Gitesh Anil Mestry, Navleen Kaur Bhatia, Prabhat Kumar Chaudhari, Ritu Duggal, and colleagues at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi conducted the trial.

Sources:
Journal of the World Federation of Orthodontists, “Effect of low-level laser therapy versus sham laser in reduction of orthodontically induced inflammatory root resorption in the adolescent patients undergoing fixed orthodontic treatment: A randomized controlled trial,” published online Nov. 5, 2026: doi.org/10.1016/j.ejwf.2026.08.003
PubMed, PMID 42988646: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42988646