Effect of conducting media and gender on the functional efficacy of electric pulp test

Abstract

Aim: To determine the pulpal sensory thresholds in human teeth using different conducting media and to check presence of gender based differences. Materials and Methods: The study was performed on 40 maxillary central incisors in 40 healthy participants, 20 males and 20 age-matched females. The three conducting media tested were gel based product – Lox 2% Jelly and toothpastes- Sensodyne Repair and Protect & Meswak. The media were used in random order and each medium was tested twice on the tooth with 1 minute interval. The tooth probe of the tester was coated with a thin layer of the test medium and a stimulus was applied on the tooth until felt by the participant. At the faintest sensation felt by the patient, the sensory threshold value and the pain scores were recorded. The mean of the two threshold values for each conducting medium and the VAS scores were used for ANOVA followed by post hoc analysis. Results: Sensory threshold values elicited by Lox 2% Jelly was significantly lower than the other conducting media (P Conclusion: Pulpal sensory thresholds to electric stimuli generated by EPT differ according to the conducting media used and gender. Keywords: Electrical conductance, Electric pulp test, Electrical stimuli, Pulp sensibility test, Sensory threshold.