Comparision between bonded amalgam sealants and resin based sealants : a randomized controlled trial in children aged 12 to 16 years from Karachi, Pakistan

Pits and fissure sealants have been widely used as an effective strategy to prevent dental caries. Children in developing countries are eight times more susceptible to dental caries compared to e children in in developed countries. Resin Based Sealant is the commonly used variety of sealants. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the three months retention of Bonded Amalgam Sealants, which is less costly than the standard Resin Based Sealant. METHOD: We conducted a parallel group, equivalence, randomized controlled trial. Target population was ildren aged 12-16 years reporting at the dental clinics of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre JPMC) and Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi (DUHS). We took informed consent and assent from parents and children, respectively; Participants were asked about their dental istory and a clinical oral examination was performed. The subjects were assigned to one of the o treatment groups; resin based sealants or bonded amalgam sealants if their molars were candidate of sealants as per inclusion criteria. Complete retention of the sealant material at 3 onths was labeled as a successful outcome. We considered tooth as the unit of analysis. We did ultilevel mixed effect logistic regression. We considered teeth characteristics as a primary level and individual\u27s characteristics as secondary level, odds ratio with 95% confidence interval were reported. RESULTS: One seventy-seven molars in each study arm were evaluated for sealant retention at three onths. Complete retentive sealants were (72.8%) in bonded amalgam arm and (78.5%) in the _sin based arm. Partially retentive teeth were 10.4% and 9.0% in the two arms, respectively. early, 12.3% resin based sealants were completely dislodged whereas among bonded amalgam alants, it was 16.76%.p. Both arches had similar retention with very mild differences. In ultivariable analysis, age (15 years) and gender (males) were found to be significantly sociated with the loss of sealants. CONCLUSIONS: BAS treatment and RBS treatment both have no difference in the short term retention of sealants