The End of Treating Tooth Decay As We Know It
UCSF Protocol for Caries Arrest Using Silver Diamine Fluoride: Rationale, Indications and Consent
The End of Treating Tooth Decay As We Know It
By Steven M. Parrett, DDS, Communications and Public Relations Advisory Group
This is the end of treating tooth decay as we know it. I hope every general and pediatric dentist understands the gravity of that statement.
If you read this seminal article by the pioneering group out of the University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry( UCSF), you will not think the same way about treating tooth decay ever again. It is not totally new to American dentists. I found an article in a 1937 JADA / The Dental Cosmos titled“ Controlling Dental Caries” by Dr James Prime, a dentist from Omaha, Nebraska. He too spoke in many of the same terms you read in this article, but he only had Silver Nitrate to work with. The combined extra strength flouride varnish with the silver solution, both stabilized, are finally a treatment that I feel allows me to actually treat the caries infection, not just restore the destruction from the disease. And I believe that is why we no longer have to use it as“ off label.” On Oct. 30, 2016, the FDA awarded Elevate Advantage Arrest with the“ Breakthrough Therapy Designation,” as a potentially lifesaving therapy for arresting caries... an unprecedented designation for any dental treatment ever.
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JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2017 | PENNSYLVANIA DENTAL JOURNAL 15