The Efficacy of Silver Diamine Fluoride in Arresting Carious Lesions in 6-9 Year Old Children From Peri Urban Islamabad

Abstract

Objective : The present study was done to assess the efficacy of silver diamine fluoride in arresting caries lesions in 6-9 year old school going children. Study Design: Quasi-experimental. Place and Duration of Study : The study was conducted from 15 February 2022 till 15 February 2023. The research was conducted by the community dentistry departments of Islamabad Medical & Dental College and Rawal Institute of Health Sciences in school going children from peri- urban Islamabad. Materials and Methods : A sample size of 384 was calculated using Open Epi software which uses cochran's formula for sample size calculation. Active carious lesions extending to enamel and dentine in primary teeth and first permanent molars were identified using the International Caries Detection System. These teeth were then treated with 38% Silver Diamine Flouride using the standard application protocol. Data was recorded electronically on excel sheets (and later SPSS version 25 for analysis) at baseline and after 6 months to assess if the active carious lesion had been arrested. The data was discrete. Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to test the significance of the results. Results: The participants included 64% males and 36% females. Average age of the study population was 7.7 years. More than half (66.4%) brushed their teeth once a day. The caries arrest in primary teeth and in first permanent molars was 77.5% and 87.7% respectively. Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was applied to check the significance of our results. In both the primary dentition and permanent molars, a single SDF application showed a statistically significant decrease in the mean number of carious lesions (p-value< 0.05). Conclusion: The present study concluded that a single application of SDF with its ease of applicability can effectively halt the progression of active carious lesions in 6-9 year old children

Keywords

• carious lesions
• efficacy
• peri-urban
• school children sdf