SDF the magic bullet in Covid 19 era

Objectives: In attempt to avoid invasive treatments and the use of dental local anesthesia and dental drills, which triggers for dental fear and anxiety in children .Moreover,The novel virus presents unprecedented challenges to the paediatric dentists. The lecture will present recent randomized clinical trial assessing discoloration and timing of discoloration of carious primary teeth after application of 38% silver diamine fluoride and its effectiveness in arresting caries lesions. Moreover, it assessed parental acceptance of SDF treatment and presence of post operative pain ,since there were no published studies investigating the use of SDF in the Egyptian population, nor assessing post operative pain in preschool children. Although several systematic reviews support the efficacy of SDF, they all indicate that further clinical trials are needed to establish protocols for optimal case selection and its use. Methods: This study was performed on children with carious primary teeth who had at least one active dentin carious lesion. They were randomly allocated into two groups. Group I: Silver Diamine Fluoride and group II: Sodium Fluoride Varnish.Assessment of discoloration (parent & practioner reported) evaluation of postoperative pain, parental satisfaction and caries arrest. Chi square test was used to compare between both groups.also correlations of each outcome was discussed. Results: It was shown that, the black discoloration increased in group I than group II with statistical significant difference in all follow up periods. Postoperative pain among teeth, increased in group II than group I in all follow‐up periods with statistical significant difference For parental satisfaction, it was shown that there was no statistically significant difference between both groups. Caries arrest was assessed by hardening of the lesion. It was shown that, it increased in group I than group II with statistical significant difference in all follow up periods. Regarding new caries and failures, it was shown that, both increased in group II than group I in all follow up periods with statistical significance. Conclusions: : The caries lesions control in children with ECC using SDF, during the COVID‐19 pandemic, is an effective, inexpensive, and easy to apply option. In addition, it offers a lower contamination risk by the coronavirus.