Abstract:

Dental pulp tissue plays a role in forming dentin, providing nutrition, conducting pain, and generating protective responses to environmental stimuli. Bacterial infection is the main cause of pulp disease, where histopathological changes are the histological basis for determining the choice of treatment and the evaluation of therapeutic effect. Thus, particular attention should be given to eliminate infection, as well as preserve and maintain pulpal health in teeth that show reversible or limited pulpal injuries. Vital pulp therapy, especially its indications and prognostic factors, has been a research hotspot that often causes confusion among clinicians. In this paper, we briefly introduce the confusion and solution for vital pulp therapy in terms of indications, pulp condition assessment, infection elimination, and capping material selection. In addition, we develop a clinical pathway and an operation normalization of vital pulp therapy to better perform the therapy.

Key words: vital pulp therapy, indication, prognostic factor, laser Doppler flowmetry