Managing Early Childhood Caries with Atraumatic Restorative Treatment and Topical Silver and Fluoride Agents

Duangporn Duangthip, Kitty Jieyi Chen, Sherry Shiqian Gao, Edward Chin Man Lo and Chun Hung Chu
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Duangporn Duangthip: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Kitty Jieyi Chen: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Sherry Shiqian Gao: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Edward Chin Man Lo: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Chun Hung Chu: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-13

Abstract: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a significant global health problem affecting millions of preschool children worldwide. In general, preschool children from families with 20% of the lowest family incomes suffered about 80% of the ECC. Most, if not all, surveys indicated that the great majority of ECC was left untreated. Untreated caries progresses into the dental pulp, causing pain and infection. It can spread systemically, affecting a child’s growth, development and general health. Fundamental caries management is based on the conventional restorative approach. Because preschool children are too young to cope with lengthy dental treatment, they often receive dental treatment under general anaesthesia from a specialist dentist. However, treatment under general anaesthesia poses a life-threatening risk to young children. Moreover, there are few dentists in rural areas, where ECC is prevalent. Hence, conventional dental care is unaffordable, inaccessible or unavailable in many communities. However, studies showed that the atraumatic restorative treatment had a very good success rate in treating dentine caries in young children. Silver diamine fluoride is considered safe and effective in arresting dentine caries in primary teeth. The aim of this paper is to review and discuss updated evidence of these alternative approaches in order to manage cavitated ECC.

Keywords: child; dental caries; dentine; primary teeth; fluoride(s); therapeutics; silver compounds; minimally invasive dentistry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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