Interpreting vital sign profiles for maximizing patient safety during dental visits.

Concerns about local anesthetics and dental treatment stress are still prevalent in today's medical and dental communities. The authors conducted 24-hour monitoring of heart rate and blood pressure for 23 patients undergoing two root planing procedures and a single periodontal surgical procedure. Chronobiologic analysis of circadian blood pressure and heart rate rhythms revealed that neither epinephrine vasoconstrictor in anesthetics nor increased invasiveness of the procedure resulted in statistically significant deviations from regular, individualized blood pressure rhythms. For surgical appointments, time of day had the greatest effect on cardiovascular variables, with the greatest elevations in blood pressure seen for surgery at 8 a.m. and the largest blood pressure decreases seen for surgery at 2 p.m.