Choice of tricalcium silicate cements among children for pulp capping-a retrospective study

Abstract

Introduction: The fundamental objective of paediatric dentistry involves the preservation of functional primary teeth through various pulp therapies. The significant treatment options for the vital pulp therapy includes pulp capping in adults, partial or complete pulpotomy in children. MTA (Mineral trioxide Aggregate) was the first Tricalcium silicate cement intro-duced in dentistry and was considered as the gold standard pulp capping agent. Recently developed Tricalcium silicate cements are biodentine, calcium-enriched cement, endosequence. Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the choice of Tricalcium silicate cement among children for pulp capping. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted under university setting by analysing 5,00,000 case sheets. The data was collected from case sheets of children who had pulp capping procedures.The collected data were cross verified by another examiner and the final data was obtained. A total of 172 cases were taken and statistically analysed using SPSS software. Results: From the data obtained, it was observed that the most common choice of Tricalcium silicate cement was found to be MTA 69%, when compared to biodentine only about 30% used for pulp capping among the children aged between 3-17 years. Gender comparison showed no significant differences (p-value = 0.9). Conclusion: Within the limitations of the study, we found that MTA was highly preferred by the dentists as a pulp capping material. From the results it has been observed that about 68% of the children are mostly treated with the MTA.