The Hall technique in preschool children

None listed

There are a large number of disadvantaged pre-school children who suffer tooth decay. Unfortunately, many of them require extensive treatment necessitating general anaesthesia with its risks and high costs. Preformed stainless steel crowns are the best method of restoring decayed baby molar teeth and a simplified method of placing them, without using general anaesthesia, has been found to be successful with school age children. We wish to test whether this method would be successful with pre-school children at high risk to dental caries in a community dental clinic at a success rate comparable to conventionally placed stainless steel crowns. Research Investigators include the Director of Clinical Leadership, Education and Research of Dental Health Services Victoria; senior academic staff of the Melbourne Dental School, University of Melbourne; the Manager Oral Health Program North Richmond Community Health, and a senior dentist from the North Richmond Community Dental Clinic. Participants will include North Richmond Community Health management and staff, preschool children patients (and their primary carers) of the North Richmond Community Dental Clinic. As part of the standard clinical care for patients at high risk to dental caries, the preschool children will have x-rays taken beforehand to diagnose decay and exclude from the study patients with extensive disease for which this treatment is not indicated. Multi-language brochures and dental examination with questionnaire will precede an interview to elicit verbal and written consent. Immediately after treatment, carers will be asked to fill in another questionnaire. At the 12 months review visit another x-ray will be taken, again according to standard clinical care for patients at high risk to dental caries, and a further questionnaire filled. The prime statistic will be the number of crowns deemed to be a success at six months, and 12 months (for Phase 1 of the study), using criteria established by previous research. Secondary findings will be the acceptance of this mode by patients, carers and staff. A key aspect is that, in appropriately selected cases, this treatment does not drill out any of the decay; so, does not require any injection of local analgesia, is less uncomfortable, and so is faster and likely to be better tolerated by pre-school children than conventional stainless steel crowns. A key issue is ascertaining that there is no unexpected progression of decay with poor outcomes. Research has shown that the decay of deciduous molars that is isolated under the crowns ceases and causes no further destruction to the teeth.

No related papers found yet.