The Prevalence of Dentine Hypersensitivity

Dentine hypersensitivity (DH) has been reported to be a common condition among the adult population with prevalence values ranging from 1% to 90%. This variation of published values, however, may be explained by the different methodologies used in these studies to determine the prevalence of the study populations, for example, self-reported questionnaires and clinical examination. Prevalence values in general dental practices appear to be lower than patients with DH arising from periodontal disease or its treatment (Chabanski MB, Gillam DG, Bulman JS, Newman HN, J Oral Rehabil 24(9):666–672.s, 1997). The question as to whether dentine hypersensitivity is a major problem for public health has been raised and the consensus would appear to be that it is a relatively minor problem (Rees and Addy 2002; Clin Periodontol 2002;29(11):997–1003. https://doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-051x.2002.291104.x. PMID: 12472992; Gillam DG, Clin Oral Investig 17(Suppl 1):S21–S29, 2013). It should, however, be acknowledged that for at least 10% of the general population of a study conducted in the UK, DH was considered a severe problem (Gillam DG, Bulman JS, Eijkman MA, J Oral Rehabil 29(3):219–225, 2002). A previous review on the burden of DH by Cunha-Cruz and Wataha (The burden of dentine hypersensitivity. In: Robinson PG (ed) Dentine hypersensitivity: developing a person-centred approach to oral health. Academic Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 34–44, 2014) from the published studies in the literature would appear to suggest that the best estimate of the prevalence of DH is 10% with an average of 33% across the studies. The question as to whether DH has a major role on the individual’s quality of life will be addressed in Chap. 3 . A further complication when assessing DH in the various study populations is the problem of assessing root sensitivity (RS) arising from periodontal diseases and/or its treatment. Until recently, most if not all prevalence studies have included both healthy individuals with DH and individuals with RS arising from periodontal disease and its treatment which has meant that both these patient groups would have been included in the prevalence studies (except for studies as reported by Chabanski et al. J Clin Periodontol. 1996;23(11):989-92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-051x.1996.tb00525.x. PMID: 8951625). Consequently, and as discussed in Chap. 1 , RS was the same as DH prior to the changes in the definitions of both DH (Canadian Advisory Board on Dentin Hypersensitivity. J Can Dent Assoc 69(4):221–226, 2003) and the European Federation of Periodontology recommendation to describe RS as a short sharp pain from exposed dentine of periodontally involved teeth or following periodontal treatments (Sanz M, Addy M. Group D summary. J Clin Periodontol 29(Suppl 3):195–196. https://doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-051X.29.s3.19.x , 2002) (see Chap. 1 ).