Ozone Efficacy in Treatment of Occlusal Caries in Primary Teeth

Ozone is now being investigated as a pharmaceutical treatment for occlusal caries in permanent and primary teeth. Aims: To assess and monitor the progression of carious lesions using both DIAGNOdent® (KaVo, Germany) and Electrical Caries Monitor (ECM, LODE BV, Netherlands) standard scale readings after Ozone treatment in primary teeth. Methods: 17 patients with 50 non-cavitated occlusal carious lesions were recruited. All teeth were cleaned by an air-abrasive system called Prophyflex 2® (KaVo, Germany) before DIAGNOdent, ECM standard scale readings and clinical classifications (Ekstrand, 1998) were recorded. After randomisation, half of the lesions were treated with Ozone using a silicone-sealed cup via a hand piece (HealOzone unit, CurOzone USA) for 10 seconds, whereas, the other half was reserved as a control group. The DIAGNOdent, ECM standard scale readings and clinical classifications readings were repeated after 3 months. Results: ECM readings were increased significantly (p<0.05) and DIAGNOdent readings were reduced significantly (p<0.01) in the test lesions compared to the control lesions. Discussion: Reduced DIAGNOdent readings have previously been shown to correlate with reduced lesion severity whilst higher ECM values correlate with less porosity within lesions, reflecting their reduced severity. These DIAGNOdent and ECM changes imply healing within the Ozone treated lesions. Conclusion: In Deciduous teeth, Ozone efficiently enabled remineralisation of carious lesions with a corresponding reduction in their porosity as measured by the ECM and DIAGNOdent respectively.