Frontiers in dental medicine
Thermal micro-insults during routine dental procedures: a forgotten determinant of pulp and dentine fate - a scoping review
By Bhat CD, Sadananda V and Bhat GS.
Abstract
Background
Thermal changes generated during routine dental procedures have traditionally been evaluated only in relation to acute pulpal injury and irreversible temperature thresholds. A growing body of experimental evidence suggests that repeated low-grade heat exposure may produce cumulative sub-clinical biological changes within the dentine-pulp complex, a phenomenon we here group under the working term "thermal micro-insults" (TMI).
Objective
To map the available literature on sub-threshold, sub-lethal and sub-ablative thermal exposure of the dentine-pulp complex during routine restorative and endodontic procedures, and to identify concepts, mechanisms, evidence gaps and clinically relevant thermal parameters.