Resin infiltration in pediatric dentistry- a review

For a conventional caries treatment generally a high speed hand-piece is used to access the lesion and a low-speed hand-piece for the caries removal, this method is considered predominantly an invasive approach. Through this approach, along with the carious tooth structure there is unintentional removal of non-carious tooth structure. Approaches for the management of dental caries have changed dramatically in recent years, evolving from the traditional, largely restorative treatment approach to a preventive approach, non-invasion or minimal invasion1. In order to diminish the amount of destruction of the tooth substance, minimally invasive cavity designs and techniques like air abrasion, atraumatic restorative therapy, chemomechanical caries removal, and lasers have been tried. For a better comprehension on the caries process, the contemporary methods of management must be aimed towards prevention of the disease, managing the caries risk and detecting the carious lesions as early as possible in order to steer clear from invasive treatment, but, when indicated, use the least invasive methods1. Various approaches have been suggested for the non-invasive management of non-cavitated caries lesions, which are also known as initial or early caries lesions. These include the remineralisation of the lesion with fluoride2 and casein phosphopeptide amorphous calcium phosphate3, or the use of therapeutic sealants for occlusal lesions4. Additional to these, a non-invasive alternative treatment was proposed that was based on the experiments conducted by Robinson et al.5 on caries infiltration with resorcinol-formaldehyde resin. The aim of this review was to present the scientific basis, the principles of resin infiltration, resin infiltration technique and to discuss its inherent clinical applications in primary and permanent dentition.