317 - Retrospective Study of Indirect Pulp Treatment on Cavitated Primary Teeth

Objective: To conduct a retrospective study on the prognosis of indirect pulp treatment (IPT) on primary teeth from the pediatric dental patients, and compare the influence of restorative material on the success of IPT.

Methods: The Institutional Review Board was approved for conducting a patient record study. A retrospective review was completed on the electronic dental records of patients treated with indirect pulp treatment at UAB School of Dentistry from 2011 through 2021. The collected data were dates of the treatment; patient demographics including tooth number, age, race, gender, and insurance coverage; medical history; patient behavior during the treatment; behavior management used during the treatment; types of restoration followed by IPT (i.e. stainless steel crown, amalgam, or composite resin); clinical examinations, and radiographic images at pre and follow up treatments; and additional treatments of the IPT treated tooth. The inclusion criteria for sorting out data included returning for at least 6 months recall with appropriate radiographs to assess the tooth. The lost follow up cases were excluded from the study. The treatment was considered successful if the patient did not report any symptoms regarding the treated tooth; and there was no signs of pathosis associated with the treated tooth present on the radiograph. The collected data from the dental records were analyzed using a statistical analysis.

Results: 140 records were collected, and 46 data were eligible for the inclusion criteria. Based on the data analysis, the success of IPT was 89.13% with only five failures. The age range of the patients at the time of rendering the treatment was 2 to 10 years with a mean of 6.0 years old. Restoration with stainless steel crown had longer survival probability compared to the resin-based composite restorations with no significant difference.

Conclusions: The current study demonstrated that IPT is a successful treatment for treating primary teeth with dental caries proximal to the pulp tissue, and could be a viable option to potentially prolong the life of the tooth until normal exfoliation.