Biological perspective of dental whitening

Introduction: tooth whitening is an aesthetic dental treatment that improves the patients’ confidence and quality of life, but one of the main problems is post-treatment tooth sensitivity. Objective: to identify the main causes of dental sensitivity and other affections after a dental whitening treatment. Method: an analytical and descriptive approach was used, where the compilation of bibliographic information was obtained through analysis, classification, and search of articles with scientific evidence based on data from the year 2018 to 2022, such as Wiley, PubMed, Scielo, Latindex, Dialnet, Lilacs, Redalyc, among others. Results: the bleaching agents cause greater surface roughness and a decrease in microhardness, which allows easy diffusion into the pulp, producing dental sensitivity in patients. In this case, it was the 67.52% with hydrogen peroxide (HP), and when it is done with carbamide peroxide (CP) the risk is 74.88%, presenting gingival irritation, 23.6% with this whitening agent. Conclusion: the bleaching agent reaches the dental pulp inducing vasodilation and triggering inflammatory mechanisms, which lead to the activation of nociceptors which causes tooth sensitivity.