Partial or Complete Excavation of Deep Caries in Primary Molars

Plain-language summary

Background: The traditional approach of carious lesions with risk for progression has has been to excavate all infected and demineralised tissue before placement of the restoration. In primary teeth, treatment of deep carious lesions is associated with significant risk of pulp lesions and postoperative complications and thus the risk of the teeth being lost. During the past decade, more focus has been on biological methods for caries excavating of deep dentin lesions. An overview comparing different biological methods such as partial or stepwise excavation of deep dentin caries in primary teeth shows that they work as well as traditional methods performing complete caries excavation but have the benefits of reducing the risk of iatrogenic pulp damage \[1-3\]. Our primary hypothesis is that there is no difference in tooth or filling survival after partial caries excavation compared to complete caries excavation in primary molars. The secondary hypothesis is that the therapist's knowledge, experience and treatment attitudes and choices are not affected by a participation in the study.

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