The ADA Science and Research Institute, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pennsylvania are writing a clinical practice guideline for the management of acute pain in dentistry, including the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and opioids. To help inform the guideline's development, public comments were collected in late 2021 on the guideline’s drafted recommendations and good practice statements.
Acute Dental Pain Management Guideline (2023)
A clinical practice guideline on the management of acute dental pain will be published in 2023.
Call for comments is now closed.
Frequently asked questions
The clinical practice guideline on the management of acute dental pain is being written by an expert panel and a team of methodologists at the ADA Science and Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pennsylvania.
This project is supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $1.5 million with 100 percent funded by FDA/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by FDA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.
The upcoming guideline for the management of acute dental pain (surgical and non-surgical) was informed by a systematic review of the best available scientific evidence. An expert panel chaired by Paul Moore, DMD, PhD, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, then used this review to draft the guideline.
Recommendations are developed via a comprehensive search of the evidence and further include a formal rating of the quality of the evidence. Good practice statements, however, provide guidance that is supposed to be supported by an overwhelming amount of indirect evidence. Attempts to summarize and assess the quality of this evidence would have been a poor use of the expert panel’s time.
These recommendations and good practice statements will appear in the guideline for the management of acute pain in dentistry. The guideline manuscript will be submitted in 2022 to a peer-reviewed journal for publication. To be added to the guideline's email list and receive updates regarding publication, please email SRI@ADA.org.