Caries reduction over 5 years from a single application of a fissure sealant

This paper is a continuation of three previously published papers giving a long-term clinical evaluation of an ultraviolet light polymerizable fissure sealant method. The present findings revealed that of the 156 permanent teeth available for study 5 years after initiation, 59.6% retained the sealants in good condition, while 25.6% of the sealants were missing or partly missing. During the test period, 37 (32.2%) of the 115 sealed permanent first molars had become carious, while 92 (80.0%) of the respective paired controls had decayed. An analysis of the efficacy of the treatment on the test-control tooth pairs showed a net gain of 55 and a percentage effectiveness of 59.8%. The sealed teeth were found to be highly significantly less decayed than the respective contols (P less than 0.001). Of the individual subjects, 73.4% were found to have benefited from the treatment.