Obesity/overweight and dental caries experience in children and adolescents: an umbrella review.

PURPOSE: The present umbrella review aimed to synthesize and critically assess the methodological and reporting quality of previous systematic reviews about the potential relationship between obesity or overweight and caries dental experience in pediatric patients. METHOD: Electronic database and manual searches were conducted in PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library up to July 2023. The risk of bias assessment of eligible systematic reviews was performed using the Risk Of Bias In Systematic reviews (ROBIS) tool. A systematization of the results was carried out in order to understand the possible relationship between the two conditions. RESULTS: Electronic and manual searches identified 136 titles and abstracts. After the removal of duplicates, 15 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. Six studies were excluded, resulting in 8 systematic reviews and 1 scoping review that met the inclusion criteria. Five were systematic reviews without meta-analysis and the rest were conducted with quantitative analysis. CONCLUSION: Conflicting findings to date from this umbrella review suggest that the relationship between obesity and dental caries in children is still inconclusive and likely to be complex.

Effectiveness of Hypnosis in Combination with Conventional Techniques of Behavior Management in Anxiety/Pain Reduction during Dental Anesthetic Infiltration.

Background and Objective. Anxiety/pain are experiences that make dental treatment difficult for children, especially during the time of anesthesia. Hypnosis is used in pediatric clinical situations to modify thinking, behavior, and perception as well as, recently, in dentistry; therefore the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of hypnosis combined with conventional behavior management techniques during infiltration anesthetic. Methods. Anxiety/pain were assessed with the FLACC scale during the anesthetic moment, as well as heart rate variability and skin conductance before and during the anesthetic moment, between the control and experimental group. Results. A marginal statistical difference (p = 0.05) was found in the heart rate between baseline and anesthetic moment, being lower in the hypnosis group. No statistically significant differences were found with the FLACC scale or in the skin conductance (p > 0.05). Conclusion. Hypnosis combined with conventional behavior management techniques decreases heart rate during anesthetic infiltration showing that there may be an improvement in anxiety/pain control through hypnotic therapy.

In vitro assessment of retention and microleakage in pit and fissure sealants following enamel pre-etching with sodium hypochlorite deproteinisation.

AIM: The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the rate of sealant retention and microleakage after placement on etched enamel with and without prior deproteinisation. STUDY DESIGN: 75 freshly extracted third molars were randomly assigned to either of two pit and fissure treatment methods. Samples from both groups were etched with 37% phosphoric acid gel for 15 seconds, followed by placement of a sealant, and then subjected to thermocycling for evaluation of sealant retention. After that, specimens were immersed in rhodamine B, sectioned longitudinally, and examined under a confocal laser scanning microscope for assessment of microleakage. Collected data were statistically analysed using chi-square and Fisher exact tests with an α level of 0.05. RESULTS: The rate of sealant retention was similar between the two study groups (P = 0.073), but the rate of sealant microleakage was significantly lower in the enamel deproteinisation group (P < 0.001) than in the control group. CONCLUSION: Based on these findings, we recommend the deproteinisation method prior to enamel acid etching to obtain better clinical results with sealants.