Eficácia de selantes em dentes decíduos em comparação com dentes permanentes

: uma revisão sistemática

Abstract

Introduction: Dental caries is still, currently, one of the major public health problems that affect most industrialized countries. Considered as a multifactorial and complex disease, there is an interaction between several factors responsible for this pathology. Pit and fissure sealants are an important strategy in preventing occlusal caries in both primary and permanent teeth. Objectives: To assess current knowledge on the effectiveness of pit and fissure sealants applied to primary versus permanent teeth. Materials and Methods: The present systematic review consisted of a literature research, carried out until December 2021, whose search engines were selected: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and Springer Link. After formulating the search equation with the most relevant terms and searching the databases, the duplicate results were eliminated. The next step consisted on reading the articles by title and abstract and, finally, the full reading was carried out. The most important data were entered into a table and analyzed later. Results: 20% of the studies evaluate the deciduous dentition and 80% the permanent. First and second deciduous molars and first permanent molars were used. 40% included only healthy teeth and 60% included teeth with non-cavitated and/or microcavitated caries in addition to healthy teeth. 20% of the articles implemented the use of absolute isolation and the remaining 80% used relative isolation. The most used type of sealant was the resin sealant with fluoride, in 80% of the studies. 20% tested resin-modified glass ionomer cement-based sealant. Conclusion: It was not possible to make a direct comparison of the effectiveness of pit and fissure sealants between primary and permanent teeth, as there is no experimental clinical study in the literature. Sealants have shown good results when applied to any of the dentitions, although the permanent dentition has been most studied. It is important to carry out further studies in this area, in order to prove the clinical success of this material in the long term.

Date of Award	18 Jul 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Andreia Sofia de Paiva Figueiredo (Supervisor) & Mariana Pinheiro Torres de Seabra (Co-Supervisor)