Dentin hypersensitivity in 112 teeth was randomly treated with
Duraphat or
Vitrabond. No patients were included unless they, without being asked, complained about daily
pain for a long period of time caused by cold, warm, sweet, sour, touch or any combination of these five variables. Patients were excluded if the
dentin hypersensitivity could have been caused by cervical abrasion/erosion lesions deeper than 1 mm,
cracked-tooth syndrome, caries lesions, operative caries treatment, and/or periodontal surgery or
root scaling within the last 6 months. The
pain was registered on a binary scale: 1)
pain before the treatment; and 2)
pain/no
pain after the treatment. With
Duraphat, 22% of the treatments failed within 1 wk and the cumulative 1-yr success rate was 41%. With
Vitrabond, 2% failed within the first week and the 1-yr success rate was 79%. The difference between the two treatments was highly significant. Patients in whom
Duraphat failed were treated with
Vitrabond and vice versa; the 1-yr success rate for the retreated teeth was 68% when "
Duraphat-failures" were treated with
Vitrabond and 42% when "
Vitrabond-failures" were treated with
Duraphat.