European journal of oral sciences
-
Pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) have been shown to be useful measures of mechanical pain sensitivity in deep tissues. However, clinical methods for measuring mechanical allodynia or hyperalgesia in teeth have not been reported. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability of PPTs in periodontal ligament of healthy Chinese participants. ⋯ The PPTs had excellent reliability with high intraclass coefficients (ICCs) across different sessions (ICC: 0.871-0.956), days (ICC: 0.879-0.951), and examiners (ICC: 0.845-0.950). Pressure pain thresholds applied to the teeth have excellent intra- and inter-examiner agreement in healthy participants. This method may be proposed as an easy and reliable technique to assess mechanical pain sensitivity (e.g. mechanical allodynia and hyperalgesia) in the periodontal ligament, which is associated with endodontic or periodontal conditions.