Secondary caries and restoration replacement: an unresolved problem.

This article reviews the prevalence and main causes of restoration failure and replacement. It then focuses on secondary caries, its histopathology, etiology, difficulties in diagnosis, and prevention and remineralization possibilities. This article concludes that although secondary caries is still the main reason for restoration replacement, the development of new technologies for detecting and monitoring these lesions at an early stage should allow for testing new interventions to arrest or remineralize these lesions, which would delay the need for re-restoration.