Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART) in Early Childhood Caries (ECC)

Considering the severity and high prevalence of ECC, as well as the importance of early intervention and approach, the Atraumatic Restorative Treatment program, because of its advantages, consists of an important treatment alternative. However, only a few studies assess ART in babies affected by ECC. For this practice to be accepted as safe, scientific evidence must be built through longitudinal studies to evaluate ART performance and to this end, the present study is justified. Therefore, the aim of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of Atraumatic Restorative Treatment performed in babies suffering from ECC after a 4-year period and compare the clinical performance of Atraumatic Restorations performed with two different glass ionomer cements. The investigator's hypothesis is that there is no difference in the clinical performance of ARTs performed with the different GICs. The study is characterized by longitudinal follow-up of a randomized, double-blind, split-mouth-type clinical trial performed in babies affected by early childhood caries. The subjects were children of both sexes, aged between 18 and 36 months, with at least one deciduous molar in each of the different dental quadrants, presenting active cavitated lesions of shallow or medium depth, involving only the occlusal surface. The initial convenience sample consisted of 100 deciduous molars of 25 children attending Bebê Clínica of the School of Dentistry of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul-FO / UFRGS, Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil;