Abstract
In view of the widely acknowledged notion that the pits and grooves of occlusal surface of a tooth are responsible for the initiation of tooth caries, a clinical and statistical study was conducted on apparently healthy 1st molar teeth in lower jaws of 7-year-old children of both sexes to see the rate of possible inhibition of caries development by filling these anatomical depressions with the resin adhesives, ethylcyano-methacrylate monomer and methylmethacrylate polymer. The results were summarized as follows. No increase in the rate of DMFT by the 3rd month, but the 8th month after the filling the male group of the subjects developed 1.9 percent increase and the female group 3.2 percent increase. DMFT rate in the control group with non-filled teeth increased by 0.9 percent in the male, 7.5 percent in the female groups respectively by the 3rd month and by 4.6 percent in the male, 11.3 percent in the female groups respectively by the 8th month. The present study showed that this procedure proved very efficient in suppressing the tooth caries development, provided that care was taken to remove as much debris as possible from the pits and grooves of the tooth occlusal surface and keep them clean and disinfected before they were filled with these materials.
