Aim of the study This review aims to assess the effectiveness of topical SDF compared to no treatment or other alternative treatments for management of dental caries in children and early adolescents. Materials and methods Several databases were searched to include randomized controlled trials that compared SDF with placebo or no treatment and other interventions. Records published until January 2025 without language restriction were included. Quality assessment was performed using the Cochrane risk of bias tools. For meta-analysis effect-sizes were calculated for continuous and categorical outcomes. Results Findings from 37 randomized controlled trials that met inclusion criteria revealed potential benefit of SDF application compared to no treatment or placebo in caries arrest and prevention of new caries in primary dentition with follow-up intervals ranging from 3-36 months. In addition, pooled analysis of studies suggested that SDF was more effective than other conservative treatments in arresting caries while for prevention of caries SDF benefit was comparable to other fluoride agent application or less beneficial in primary dentition. Conclusions These results provide further evidence for clinical application of SDF in treatment of carious lesions in primary dentition. Further research and rigorous designed clinical trials are warranted to confirm these findings and explore the potential of topical SDF alone or combined with other agents for caries management in pediatric population.
Omair M. Bukhari (Wed,) studied this question.