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The Effects of Dexamethasone on the Time to Pain Resolution in Dental Periapical Abscess

NCT03005522 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 73

Last updated 2022-12-28

Study results available
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Summary

An individual's quality of life can be seriously affected by the severity of dental pain. The emergency department is a common place to find those seeking relief from their dental pain- often times seeking removal of the affected tooth, dental anesthetic injections or oral pain medications. There are a number of dental infections that cause this type of debilitating pain. One such dental infection is termed periapical abscess. This infection involves the tooth pulp. These infections can arise in three ways: introduction through a defect in the enamel and dentin; from a periodontal pocket or an adjacent tooth; or hematogenous seeding of the pulp from mechanical irritation. As this disease process continues there are a number of complications including chronic pain and, more seriously, the spread of infection into deep spaces which can be a life threatening condition.

The Emergency Department treatment of this infection includes pain control, antibiotics and dental referral for ultimate management of the infection.

The purpose of our study is to investigate whether the addition of oral steroids will alter the time until patient experiences improvement in their dental pain. Steroids are a commonly used anti-inflammatory that is used in the Emergency Departmentfor the purpose of pain relief from throat pain. As the pain from periapical infection is thought to be largely from the pressure we speculate that the anti-inflammatory effects of steroids may decrease the inflammation thus the pressure and may ultimately lead to a decrease in time until the patient experiences some relief from their pain.

Conditions

  • Dental Research
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations, Dental

Interventions

DRUG

oral dexamethasone

Patient will be dosed with either placebo or with the study drug, 10mg oral dexamethasone, to be administered by mouth one time in the ED

DRUG

Placebo Oral Capsule

dosed with placebo

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Arizona

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Noah Tolby, MD · University of Arizona

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
DOUBLE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2017-01-31
Primary Completion
2019-12-31
Completion
2019-12-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03005522 on ClinicalTrials.gov