Clinical evaluation of two minimal interventional restorative approaches : 5-year follow-up

Objective: To compare the performance of two minimally invasive restorative treatment approaches for managing dental caries. Methods: A total of 50 pregnant women (second trimester of pregnancy), mean age 22±5.30 years, were treated by two previously trained operators. The treatment approaches tested were: chemo-mechanical (Carisolv-MediTeam, Sweden) and mechanical (Atraumatic Restorative Treatment -ART) methods. A parallel-group study design was used in which the two treatments were randomly placed in 50 matched pairs of permanent teeth. The treatments were performed in Public Health Centers located in suburban areas of Bauru city in Brazil. The restorative material used was high strength glass ionomer cement (Ketac Molar, 3M ESPE).The restorations were evaluated by 2 calibrated independent double-blind examiners according to ART criteria. The inter examiner kappa was 0.93. The data were analyzed using 95% confidence interval on the binomial distribution and Fisher Exact test. A difference was statistically significant if p