Caries Preventive Effect of Glass Ionomer Sealant in Primary Molars

Objective: To evaluate the caries preventive effect of glass ionomercement as a sealant over primary molars with no or enamel caries after twelve months.Methods: Seventy four pre-school children, aged 3-5 years, participated in a randomized, split-mouth, clinical trial. Pit and fissure caries were evaluated before sealing and after 12 months using ICDAS.Teeth with score less than 3 were selected. Two hundred and seventy-two molarswere randomly assigned into two treatments; (1) glass ionomer sealant (Fuji VII) and (2) resin sealant (Concise).After 12 months, teethwithpartial or total loss of sealant were evaluated for the changes of caries status over the pits and fissures and categorized as “No change”, “Progression” and “Remission”.The teeth with complete retention of sealant were also categorized as “No change”. Results: After 12 months, 128 teeth were available for evaluation.Resin sealant performed better in terms of retention. In the glass ionomer group; complete retention,partial loss and total loss were 24.2%, 47.7% and28.1% respectively. In the resin group; complete retention, partial loss and total loss were 61.7 %, 32.8% and 5.5 % respectively. There was a highly significant difference in retention between both materials (p < 0.001).In glass ionomer group, the percentage of “Progression” “No change” and “Remission” were 4.7 %, 87.5% and 7.8% respectively.In resin group, the percentage of “Progression”,“No change” and “Remission” were 3.9 %, 93.8% 2.3%. There was no difference in the percentage of the occurrence of caries between two groups (p>0.05).Conclusions: Complete retention of resin sealant was higher than glass ionomer sealant. Glass ionomersealant and resin sealantcan effectively prevent caries in primary molars.