Abstract
In recent years, the use of lasers for cavity preparation has been attracting attention in dental treatment, however, there are very few reports regarding children's psychological evaluation in regard to the treatment of primary teeth caries. Therefore, we evaluated the level of pain and discomfort in the treatment of primary teeth caries using an Er:YAG laser and assessed the effectiveness of using an Er:YAG laser on pediatric patients.
The subjects comprised of 26 pediatric patients ranging from 2 to 10 years of age (11 boys, 15girls, mean age: 4.9 years) who visited the Pediatric Dental Clinic at Nippon Dental University Hospital. The pediatric patients were diagnosed to have dental caries in a dentin lesion, in whom we performed composite resin restoration using the Er:YAG laser on 34 primary teeth. For the evaluation of pain and discomfort, we used the Face Scale (FS) with six grades (0−5), and the dentist asked the pediatric patients about pain and discomfort during the use of the Er:YAG laser based on the FS immediately after the treatment.
As a result, the mean for pain and discomfort were 0.7±0.9 and 0.7±1.0, respectively, wherein pediatric patients felt very little pain or discomfort. In comparing boy and girl pediatric patients, the girl patients exhibited a slightly higher value of pain than the boy patients, however, no significant difference was observed. In a comparison of the maxillary primary teeth and mandibular primary teeth and the primary anterior teeth and molars, no significant difference was observed in regard to pain and discomfort. In response to the question as to whether they would like to have the an Er:YAG laser used for subsequent dental treatments, 81% of the pediatric patients answered "yes."
These results may suggest that the treatment of primary teeth caries using an Er:YAG laser is effective for pediatric patients.
