ReviewJournal of dental anesthesia and pain medicine2026
Effect of photobiomodulation on pain perception during local anesthesia in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Review in Journal of dental anesthesia and pain medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Pain associated with anesthetic injections is a significant concern in pediatric dentistry and is often linked to dental fear and anxiety. Photobiomodulation (PBMT) may reduce pain symptoms in children during local anesthesia administration. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the current scientific evidence on the effectiveness of PBMT in reducing pain during local anesthesia administration in children. Data search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane CENTRAL, Embase, and BVS-MedLine/LILACS up to January 2025, without restrictions on language or year of publication. Two independent reviewers performed the data extraction and assessed the risk of bias (ROB-2 tool). A meta-analysis was performed, and the mean difference (MD), standardized mean difference (SMD), and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. The strength of the evidence was also assessed. The electronic search identified 9,852 records, of which 10 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in the qualitative synthesis. The analyzed studies employed different PBMT parameters, varying in wavelengths and energy densities. The meta-analysis included studies with placebo or topical anesthetic gel as control groups, and measured pain outcomes using the WBFPRS and FLACC scales. All included studies measured pain at the moment of needle insertion. Three studies comparing PBMT with a placebo, which contributed 14 comparisons. These studies demonstrated a moderate reduction in pain in favor of PBMT (SMD = -0.44; 95% CI: -0.59 to -0.29; I
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.