Cochrane Systematic Review Finds No Evidence to upport the Use of Antibiotics for Pain Relief in rreversible Pulpitis

e l b c t p p c p bstract he Cochrane Systematic Review promotes evidenceased outcomes studies. The review summarized here as conducted in an attempt to achieve reliable evience concerning the effectiveness, or otherwise, of rescribing antibiotics for patients having irreversible ulpitis. A competent search strategy was developed nd used across several databases including MEDLINE o identify randomized controlled trials for inclusion. ssessment of methodological quality was based on riteria defined by The Cochrane Collaboration. Clinical utcome, expressed in terms of pain relief, was examned. There was a relative dearth of research providing high level of evidence. Only one methodologically ound trial was found that compared pain relief with ystemic antibiotic/analgesic treatment against a plaebo/analgesic combination during the acute preopertive phase of irreversible pulpitis. Although the seected study used a relatively small, low-powered ample, it did provide some evidence that there is no ignificant difference in pain relief for patients with ntreated irreversible pulpitis who received antibiotics ersus those who did not. These findings increase the ationale to investigate the teaching of safe and effecive antibiotic prescribing in endodontics and to adance the development of appropriate evidence-based linical guidelines. (J Endod 2006;32:87–92)