Pre-Operative Pain’- A Clinical Indicator to Govern the Choice of Pulpotomy Agent in Primary Teeth: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of pre-operative pain on the success of pulpotomy in primary teeth and to assess whether formocresol (FC) or MTA performs better in patients with pre-operative pain. METHODOLOGY: Data was collected retrospectively from the records of Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Children Hospital, Islamabad. Only patients with complete pre-operative and one-year follow-up clinical and radiographic records were included. A total of 60 teeth were selected for the study on which pulpotomy was performed. Among the selected teeth, thirty teeth were symptomatic at time of treatment and thirty were asymptomatic. Fifteen teeth in each group were treated with FC and fifteen with MTA as pulpotomy medicament. RESULTS: After one-year, the clinical and radiographic success of pulpotomized teeth with positive history of pain was found to be 70% and 53.3% respectively. Among the teeth with positive pre-operative pain, 60% of the teeth treated with FC and 80% of the teeth treated with MTA showed clinical success. The radiographic success rate was found to be 33.3% and 73.3% for FC and MTA respectively. CONCLUSION: The results from the current study suggest the presence of pre-operative pain negatively affects the success of pulpotomy in primary molars and could be used as an important clinical indicator to govern the choice of pulpotomy agent in clinical practice. KEYWORDS: Pulpotomy, Formocresol, Mineral trioxide aggregate, Primary teeth.