Esma Yildiz

This study evaluated the fracture strength of various restorative materials for primary molars in dovetail and box-only class II cavity designs. Eighty extracted noncarious human primary molars were used. The teeth were randomly divided into two groups for either dovetail or box-only preparations. The teeth were then divided into four subgroups for each restorative material: glass ionomer cement (GIC), resin-modified glass ionomer cement (RMGIC), compomer, and composite. The restorations were tested for fracture strength. The loads at fracture and fracture mode were recorded and a scanning electron microscopy analysis was performed to observe the micromorphology of the borders between the teeth and the materials. The nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U-tests were used. Although there were significant differences between the restorative materials (p < 0.05), there were no differences between the fracture strength of the box-only and the dovetail cavity designs in any of the groups (p > 0.05) except the composite group. The fracture strength of the compomer and composite groups was significantly higher than that of the GIC and RMGIC groups (p < 0.05). A class II cavity could be selected as dovetail or box-only and compomer and composite are more resistant to fracture than GIC and RMGIC.

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate four different pulpotomy medicaments in primary molars. Materials and Methods: A total of 147 primary molars with deep caries were treated with four different pulpotomy medicaments (FC: formocresol, FS: ferric sulfate, CH: calcium hydroxide, and MTA: mineral trioxide aggregate) in this study. The criteria for tooth selection for inclusion were no clinical and radiographic evidence of pulp pathology. During 30 months of follow-up at 6-month intervals, clinical and radiographic success and failures were recorded. The differences between the groups were statistically analyzed using the Chi-square test and Kaplan-Meier analysis. Results: At 30 months, clinical success rates were 100%, 95.2%, 96.4%, and 85% in the FC, FS, MTA, and CH groups, respectively. In radiographic analysis, the MTA group had the highest (96.4%), and the CH group had the lowest success rate (85%). There were no clinical and radiographic differences between materials (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Although there were no differences between materials, only in the CH group did three teeth require extraction due to further clinical symptoms of radiographic failures during the 30-month follow-up period. None of the failed teeth in the other groups required extraction during the 30-month follow-up period.