Alternative Pretreatment Methods for Resin Infiltration in Primary Anterior Teeth

Lee, Eungyung; Shin, Jonghyun; Kim, Jiyeon; Jeong, Taesung; Kim, Shin

Abstract

Resin infiltration has been used as a treatment option for the management of early caries lesions recently. However, the etching procedure with hydrochloric acid might be somewhat stressful for the clinicians due to safety problem especially for young children, leading to less utility. This study aims at searching for some alternative surface pretreatment methods of resin infiltration for the early caries lesions in primary anterior teeth by comparing penetration depth of various methods. No significant difference was found in penetration ratio between etched surface with 15% hydrochloric acid and 35% phosphoric acid. However, the penetration ratio was significantly higher in groups pretreated either with dental pumice or abrasive metal strip (p < .05). By the result of this study, etching with phosphoric acid as an alternative of hydrochloric acid was thought clinically acceptable as a pretreatment method for resin infiltration in early caries lesions for primary anterior teeth. It was notable that surface conditioning with dental pumice or metal strip before etching was effective in increasing the penetration. This procedural modification might be much more correspondent with minimally invasive concept and hopefully contribute to increased safety and utility in pediatric dentistry.