Deep dentine caries management of immature permanent posterior teeth with vital pulp: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: Preservation of pulpal vitality in immature permanent teeth with deep carious lesions is essential to enable further root development and apical closure. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the evidence regarding the efficacy, presented clinical and radiographic success, and bacteriological outcomes of techniques and materials used for deep caries management in vital immature permanent teeth. DATA: Randomised controlled trials evaluating Vital Pulp Therapy (VPT) for deep caries in immature permanent posterior teeth without history of irreversible pulpitis, and a follow up period of ≥12 months were included. Study characteristics and outcomes of all included studies were summarized. Cochrane's Risk-of-bias tool 2.0 was used to assess the quality of eligible studies. Meta-analyses using a random effects model was performed. SOURCES: Electronic databases PubMed, Medline, Embase, LILACS, CENTRAL and Cochrane Library were searched, followed by a manual search. STUDY SELECTION: Twelve papers were included into the review. Overall success rates were 98%, 93.5%, 93.6% for direct pulp cap (DPC), indirect pulp cap (IPC) and pulpotomy (PP) respectively. Regardless of VPT technique, there were no significant differences between clinical and radiographic success rates. Completion of root development was achieved in more than 83% of the cases in all VPT techniques. CONCLUSIONS: All treatment modalities for PP were equally efficient with high overall success rates. Biodentine showed high success rates regardless of technique. No significant differences were found in the clinical and radiographic success rates between various follow-up intervals. There are no clear conclusions regarding superiority of either VPT technique on apical closure. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: This manuscript systematically evaluates the evidence and summarises all available data on each vital pulp therapy technique and materials used in treatment of deep caries in immature permanent teeth with vital pulps. The limitations in the current scientific literature and recommendations for future research are also highlighted.

Contemporary management of deep caries in primary teeth: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: To systematically evaluate the available evidence regarding contemporary management of deep caries in vital primary teeth. This review was carried out to facilitate the development of European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry (EAPD) guidelines on deep caries management of primary teeth in paediatric dentistry. METHODS: A systematic electronic literature search was conducted to locate studies reporting on interventions and medicaments used for the treatment of deep caries in vital primary teeth. To facilitate this, the Cochrane Library (1992 to up to December 6th, 2020), MEDLINE (PubMed, 1946 to December Week 1, 2020), Ovid MEDLINE (In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, December 6th, 2020); EMBASE (Embase.com, 1974 to December 6th, 2020) and LILACS (1982 to December 6th, 2020) were accessed. Hand search of reference lists of included articles, as well as handbooks and grey literature search was also performed. Study screening was done in duplicate and study inclusions were agreed upon by all authors. Data extraction, and methodological quality and risk of bias assessment were carried out in duplicate for each of the included studies. Overall success rate of each intervention and medicament within the intervention was reported. Meta-analysis was also performed for high-quality studies reporting similar interventions and comparable outcomes in homogeneous population. RESULTS: A total of 1332 papers were identified. Following the primary and secondary assessment process, 36 papers were included in the review. Of these, 8 papers were deemed to represent 4 individual studies, leaving a total of 32 unique studies eventually included in the final analysis. These studies were further categorized into three main vital pulp treatment methods for analysis: indirect pulp capping (IPC), direct pulp capping (DPC), and pulpotomy (PP). Overall, IPC, DPC and PP interventions have high success rates with the reported clinical success rates higher than radiographic success rates. Medicaments used for IPC and DPC have similar success rates. Mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA), ferric sulfate (FS) and formocresol (FC) PP showed similar success rates, and which were all higher than calcium hydroxide (CH). Majority of included studies (n = 22; 63%) were rated low in terms of their potential risk of bias, 6 studies were rated high (17%), and 7 studies were of unclear risk (20%). CONCLUSION: Within the limitations of the studies included, IPC, DPC, and PP can be recommended as effective treatment modalities for primary teeth with deep caries under specific conditions.

Vital Pulp Therapy in Primary Teeth with Deep Caries: An Umbrella Review.

Purpose: The purpose of this umbrella review was to retrieve and assess the available systematic reviews reporting on pulp treatment of vital primary teeth with deep carious lesions. Methods: A literature search was conducted on electronic bibliographic databases to locate systematic reviews reporting on vital pulp therapy techniques or medicaments with two-arm comparisons and a follow-up period of at least 24 months. Eligible reviews were selected, data were extracted, and the risk of bias was assessed using a risk of bias in systematic reviews (ROBIS) tool. The degree of overlap was evaluated by calculating the corrected covered area (CCA). Results: Nine systematic reviews that cited 96 primary studies, with a high degree of overlap (14 percent CCA) were included. Indirect pulp capping had the highest success rate (94 percent) at 24 months, followed by direct pulp capping (88.8 percent), with different medicaments not significantly affecting the outcome. Pulpotomy showed the lowest success rate (82.6 percent), with the highest quality of evidence supporting the effective application of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) and formocresol (FC). Conclusions: The high success rate of pulp therapy techniques for the management of deep caries in vital primary teeth is evident; nevertheless, there remains insufficient evidence to draw scientifically solid conclusions about which technique and material are superior.

Techniques for effective local anaesthetic administration for the paediatric patient.

Local anaesthesia forms the backbone of pain control techniques in dentistry and has a major role in dentistry for children and adults alike. Dental anxiety is still prevalent among children, causing delays in seeking dental care and leading to increased rates in childhood caries, resulting in increased hospital admissions for dental care under general anaesthesia. There is a constant search for more comfortable means of achieving local anaesthesia to provide a more positive experience for paediatric patients when seeking dental treatment. This article aims to provide an overview of local anaesthetic techniques used in paediatric dentistry, as well as methods utilised to make local anaesthetic administration more comfortable and how to increase acceptability.

[Dental anxiety in preschool children: How helpful are behavioral control management strategies?] / Angst vor medizinischen Untersuchungen am Beispiel der Zahnbehandlungsangst: Wie hilfreich ist der Einsatz verhaltenstherapeutischer Techniken bei Vorschulkindern?

Dental anxiety in preschool children: How helpful are behavioral control management strategies? Abstract. Objective: Dental anxiety is a frequent problem in the dental treatment of young children. Control management methods are widely used in pediatric dental care as coping strategies. This study compares two control management strategies regarding their reduction of dental anxiety and treatment success. Method: A group of 60 preschool children with known dental fear in their medical history underwent professional dental cleaning in which the Tell-Show-Do Method (TSDM) was applied. Patients were randomized into two groups according to the controlling method employed: (1) limited controlling method (L-K) and (2) standardized controlling method (S-K). The efficacy of the two control methods was tested using pulse rate as an objective measure of anxiety and self-rating as a subjective indicator. Results: Both the S-K and the L-K condition showed a significant reduction in pulse rate, and there was no difference in physiological arousal and treatment success. However, independent of the group disposition, there was a noticeable increase in pulse rate in children after TSDM. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that even limited options for controlling dental treatment do not lead to greater burdens on the children in question with dental anxiety. However, further studies are necessary to investigate the use of control methods independent of TSDM.

Clinical validation of near-infrared light transillumination for early proximal caries detection using a composite reference standard.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this in vivo prospective clinical study was to validate a near-infrared light transillumination (NILT) device for the detection of proximal caries lesions and compare it to the established diagnostic method of bitewing radiography (BWR). MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 116 interproximal posterior teeth/surfaces without gross cavitation were included and assessed with BWR and NILT. After clinical examination, the teeth with sound surfaces or non-cavitated caries lesions were separated with the use of an orthodontic separation rubber for 24h. Upon removal of the separator a silicon impression was obtained and the teeth surfaces were directly investigated. Intra- and inter-examiner reproducibility, sensitivities (SE) and specificities (SP) as well as the area under ROC curves (AUC) were calculated. RESULTS: The SE of NILT was 0.92 in D1 lesions and 1.00 in D2 and D3 lesions, respectively. BWR showed SE values of 0.81 in D1 lesions, 0.74 in D2 and 1.00 in D3 lesions, respectively. However, NILT showed lower values of SP (D1 0.38, D2 0.42 and D3 0.99) compared to BWR (D1 0.65, D2 0.88, D3 1.00). Intra-examiner reproducibility increased for both examiners from the initial examination (0.68 and 0.62) to the recall appointment (0.89 and 0.76) respectively. CONCLUSION: The performance of NILT in detection of enamel caries was comparable to BWR. NILT could be considered as a useful and reliable tool in clinical practice. However, monitoring of enamel lesions might not be accurate, since a low specificity of NILT at D1,2 level and a tendency to false positive ratings have been shown. Therefore, it is recommended that treatment decisions should not be based on NILT alone. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This study might indicate that NILT can be used for routine patient screening but the use of BWR is still important for treatment decisions.