Abstract
Background and objective:To evaluate the effects of photobiomodulation on the rate of orthodontic tooth movement (OTM), and levels of osteoprotegrin (OPG), receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B ligand (RANKL), and osteopontin (OPN) in gingival crevicular fluid. Materials and methods:A split-mouth randomized controlled clinical trial was designed on patients requiring first maxillary premolar extraction and distalization of canine. Fixed orthodontic treatment was carried out using metallic brackets of diameter 0.022-0.028 inch followed by early leveling with alignment phase for 6 months. The force exerted by the coil spring was estimated, which was placed to close the space between the second premolar and canine. All test sites received photobiomodulation in four visits: at the time of force application (T-0), after 3 days (T-1), 7 days (T-2), and 14 days (T-3), whereas control sites did not. A diode laser with low power of 100 mW, and wavelength of 808 nm was applied for 10 sec at 10 points of gingiva. Sampling of cytokines including OPG, OPN, and RANKL was carried out by random selection of the gingival sulcus and estimation using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. For statistical comparison, paired samplest-test and one-way analysis of variance were used atp < 0.05 level. Results:Forty-four patients (27 female:17 male adolescents) with mean age 14.8 years were included. Photobiomodulation (78.45 days) produced less mean time for the space closure than control sites (91.83 days) that showed a statistically significant difference between the groups (p < 0.001). Percentage of alignment and leveling improvement was significantly greater in the photobiomodulation group than the nonlaser group at 1 month (F-1;p = 0.04) and 2 months (F-2;p < 0.001) after treatment commencement. Test and control sites showed 69.48% and 42.63% of leveling and alignment at F-1, and 95.29% and 59.73% of leveling and alignment was seen in the test and control sites at F-2, respectively. At consecutive follow-up periods, photobiomodulation showed a significant increase in the OPG and OPN and significant reduction in the RANKL compared with control sites (p < 0.05). Conclusions:This study concludes that photobiomodulation accelerates OTM and modulates the levels of cytokines that supplements OTM.