Nobody anticipates developing a cavity drilled and filled with a dentist. Now there’s an alternative solution: an antimicrobial liquid that could be brushed on cavities to prevent dental cairies – painlessly.


The liquid is called silver diamine fluoride, or S.D.F. It’s been useful for decades in Japan, but it’s been for sale in the usa, underneath the name Advantage Arrest, for merely a year.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared silver diamine fluoride to use as being a tooth desensitizer for adults 21 and older. But research has revealed it can halt the continuing development of cavities and stop them, and dentists are increasingly deploying it off-label for the people purposes.

“The upside, the truly amazing one, is that you don’t should drill and also you don’t need an injection,” said Dr. Margherita Fontana, a professor of cariology in the University of Michigan.

Silver diamine fluoride is utilized in a huge selection of dental offices. Medicaid patients in Oregon are getting treatments, and a minimum of 18 dental schools have begun teaching generation x of pediatric dentists utilizing it.

Dr. Richard Niederman, the chairman from the epidemiology and health promotion department in the Ny University College of Dentistry, said, “Being able to paint it on in A few seconds without having noise, no drilling, is better, faster, cheaper.”

“I would encourage parents to request it,” he added. “It’s less trauma for your kid.”

The principle downside is aesthetic: Silver diamine fluoride blackens the brownish decay on the tooth. That won’t matter on the back molar or even a baby tooth which will drop out, however, many patients are likely to end up deterred from the prospect of your dark spot on an evident tooth.

Until more insurers buy it, patients also have to cover the charge. Still, it’s comparatively cheap. Dr. Michelle Urschel, an anesthesiologist, was very happy to pay $25 to get Dr. Jeanette MacLean, a pediatric dentist in Glendale, Ariz., paint on the cavity that her son Knox, 4, had recently developed.

A cavity which had to become drilled cost $151. The liquid “was very reasonable,” Dr. Urschel said.

The noninvasive treatment may be suitable for the indigent, an elderly care facility residents and others who’ve trouble finding care. And many anxious dental patients need to dodge the drill.

But the liquid may be especially helpful for children. Nearly a quarter of 2- to 5-year-olds have cavities, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some preschoolers with severe cavities have to be treated inside a hospital under general anesthesia, although it may pose risks to the developing brain.

“S.D.F. provides an opportunity to reduce the number of toddlers with cavities visiting the O.R.,” said Dr. Arwa Owais, an affiliate professor of pediatric dentistry in the University of Iowa.

Dr. Laurence Hyacinthe, a pediatric dentist in Harlem, used silver diamine fluoride on eight uncooperative children whose parents desired to delay a holiday to a operating room.

Dr. MacLean said, “People believe that parents will reject it as a consequence of poor aesthetics.” But “if it means preventing a kid from needing to be sedated or having their tooth drilled and filled, there are many parents who choose S.D.F.,” she added.

Alejandra Bujeiro, 32, was delighted that her 3-year-old daughter, Natalia, didn’t need two cavities completed the rear of her mouth. Instead Dr. Eyal Simchi, a pediatric dentist in Elmwood Park, N.J., brushed silver diamine fluoride on the decay.

Two front teeth, however, were drilled. The very next time, Ms. Bujeiro said, she’d select silver diamine fluoride. “I would utilize it in baby teeth even if it’s in-front,” she said. Alternatives discoloration? “You can’t view it too much.”

Silver diamine fluoride has an additional benefit over traditional treatment: It kills the bacteria that create decay. An additional treatment applied six to 18 months following your first markedly arrests cavities, studies show.

“S.D.F. cuts down on the incidence of the latest caries and continuing development of current caries by about 80 percent,” said Dr. Niederman, that’s updating an evidence overview of silver diamine fluoride published in ’09.

Fillings, electrical systems, don’t cure a verbal infection.

“There’s nothing which goes on in a operating room that treats the main problem,” said Dr. Peter Milgrom, a professor of pediatric dentistry in the University of Washington who had been instrumental in receiving F.D.A. clearance for silver diamine fluoride and contains a financial stake in Advantage Arrest.

That’s why some children have to have dental care under anesthesia twice.

Bacterial infections also cause acne, but a “dermatologist doesn’t please take a scalpel and stop your pimples,” said Dr. Jason Hirsch, a pediatric dentist in Royal Palm Beach, Fla. Yet “that’s how dentistry has approached cavities.” Dr. Hirsch features a Facebook page called SDF Action, where dentists can discuss individual cases.
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