Current and potential pulp therapies for primary and young permanent teeth.

OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to alert the dental practitioner to the rapidly evolving therapies for treating the pulps of primary and young permanent teeth. DATA SOURCES: Experimental research on animals, clinical studies and case reports. STUDY SELECTION: Indirect pulp capping, direct pulp capping, pulpotomies, and pulpectomies are standard procedures for treating primary teeth. However, direct pulp capping, heretofore not very successful, is being revisited. Based on studies in animals and clinical findings in humans, there has been a movement in pediatric dentistry to find alternatives to formocresol and calcium hydroxide for pulpotomy therapy. Venues range from eradication by cautery to the possibility of healing with growth factors. New studies with iodoform paste for pulpectomies are confirming the success rates of previous publications. The new dental adhesives are being tested as agents for direct pulp capping, as well as partial and complete pulpotomy protocols.
CONCLUSIONS: More thought is being given by clinicians to preserving pulp, either through more ambitious indirect pulp therapy or partial pulpotomy. Formocresol and calcium hydroxide pulpotomies, while still popular, may soon be challenged by other chemical treatments, electrocautery or stimulation of reparative dentine by growth factors. Iodoform pastes are promising easier and more successful pulpectomy therapy. Total etch direct bonding materials could soon transform direct pulp capping, as well as partial and complete pulpotomy protocols.