Efficacy and Retention of Sealants Placement Using Two Isolation Systems

In children, 80-90% of dental caries is found in the pits and fissures of the posterior permanent teeth. Pit and fissure sealants (PFS) can be used effectively to prevent dental caries. When applied correctly, dental PFS accomplish three main objectives: preventing dental caries development, hindering dental caries development in its initial phases, and inhibiting the spread of bacteria that cause dental caries. To be effective, PFS need to be applied under sufficient moisture control around the specific teeth undergoing treatment. Therefore, proper isolation of the teeth is one of the most important steps when placing sealants to ensure their retention. Cotton roll isolation (CRI) has been widely used for sealant placement, and is the most common method among pediatric dentists. However, the placement of cotton rolls on the lateral part of the tongue or inadequate isolation during CRI has both been reported to produce gagging, tasting the contents and requiring frequent replacement of the wet cotton rolls. A previous study demonstrated that new moisture control systems such as Isolite, produce sealant retention rates comparable to cotton roll isolation, while decreasing procedure time. DryShield (DS) has recently been introduced as an all-in-one isolation system. It is similar to the Isolite as it combines the tasks of fluid evacuation, tongue and cheek retraction, and serves as a bite block, but differs in that it is autoclavable and does not provide illumination. Its design allows it to suction and isolate half the oral cavity at a time. Therefore, it should presumably facilitate sealants placement under a more controlled environment, while reducing chair time for the dentist. Few trials have compared the PFS chair time and patient acceptance of DS to the CRI. The goals of this study were to evaluate patients' preferences, time efficiency, and retention of PFS using DS compared to CRI in a single randomized clinical study.