Analysis of Salivary Amylase Level in Patients with Pain of Endodontic Origin: A Case-Control Study.

Background: Adequate management of pain of endodontic originrequires an understanding of the severity and the need foremergency treatment. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) is amajor saliva biomarker linked to pain from oral diseases butnot established with pain from endodontic/pulpal diseaseswhich form a major proportion of oral pathologies.Objective: To assess the relationship between salivaryalpha-amylase level and pain of endodontic origin.Methods: A case-control study on patients attending theDental Centre of the University College Hospital, Ibadan,diagnosed with pain of Symptomatic irreversible pulpitis(SIP) and Symptomatic apical periodontitis (SAP). The painwas assessed with a visual analogue scale (VAS)subjectively. Saliva (stimulated and unstimulated) wascollected and the sAA level was analysed using Elisa Kit.IBM SPSS version 25.0 was used for data analysis. Pearson’scorrelation was used to test the relationship between painand sAA level with a P-value set at ≤ 0.05.Results: Participants (43, 30) were included as test andcontrol respectively. The mean unstimulated andstimulated saliva sAA was 123.1 ng/ml ±22.59 and119.6ng/ml ±27.98 respectively, for the test group and47.55± 9.54 ng/ml and 48.24± 10.85 ng/m for the control.The sAA level in both saliva samples was significantly higherin the test group compared to the control group. However,no significant correlation was observed between pain andsAA in unstimulated (r = 0.04, p = 0.82) and stimulated (r =0.01, p = 0.96) saliva.Conclusion: sAA showed a significantly elevated level inpatients with pain of SIP and SAP but did not show acorrelation with pain perception.