Purpose The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) recog-

nizes that the desire for dental whitening in pediatric and adolescent patients has increased. This policy is intended to help professionals and patients make informed decisions about the indications, efficacy, and safety of internal and external bleaching of primary and young permanent teeth and incorporate such care into a comprehensive treatment plan. Methods This policy is an update of the previous document adopted in 2004 and last revised in 2009. This revision included a new literature search of the PubMed ® electronic database using the following parameters: Terms: “dental bleaching”, “dental whitening”, and “tooth bleaching”; Fields: all; Limits: within the last 10 years, humans, English, clinical trials, and birth through age 18; 260 articles matched these criteria. Papers for review were chosen from this list and from the references within selected articles. When data did not appear sufficien