This three-part series provides a comprehensive commentary on the positive and negative aspects of the dental dam system. This first part gives an overview of dental dams and gives the methodology and key findings of a literature review on their use, advantages and drawbacks. A search of the literature, including peer-reviewed studies and grey literature, was carried out and the results analysed. Dental dam application was found to provide significant clinical benefits as well as having various limitations. Part 2 will examine the advantages of rubber dam use in more detail and part 3 will comprehensively consider the disadvantages and limitations and make practical recommendations to address these. The authors recommend reviewing all three parts together, using the references and Table 1 as a guide. CPD/Clinical Relevance: This critical analysis of rubber dam outlines its possible uses, highlights gaps in the scientific data and the need for more research, and offers suggestions for overcoming limitations.
Karmanov et al. (Mon,) studied this question.