Proximal carious lesions infiltration—a 3-year follow-up study of a randomized controlled clinical trial

Introduction Infiltration of carious lesion has been claimed as a promising approach for the management of non-cavitated proximal lesions (NCPL). Clinical studies have suggested that this approach may reduce NCPL progression in individuals whose caries risk was not change over the studied period. Objective This study aimed to assess the additional benefit of infiltration of NCPL over a 3-year period in a group of individuals who received treatment and control of carious activity. Materials and methods Twenty-two caries-active subjects that possessed at least a pair of NCPL in posterior teeth were selected for this study totalizing 36 pairs of lesion. In a split-mouth design, lesions were randomly allocated to test (infiltration) or placebo treatments. At follow-up, lesions were radiographically analyzed, progression was determined by radiographic pair-wise comparison and differences in number of progressing lesions between test, and placebo-treated surfaces were compared. Results Seventeen subjects (27 pairs of lesions) were followed up. Only four subjects were caries-active at the follow-up. In the test group, 2/27 (7.4%) lesions and in the placebo group 5/27 (18.5%) lesions had progressed. No statistical difference was observed between the studied groups ( p = 0.453). Conclusion Subjects under treatment focusing on controlling caries activity presented low progression rates in both infiltrated and non-infiltrated NCPL. As only very few lesions progressed in both groups, no significant additional effect could be found. Further studies with larger sample sizes are necessary. Clinical relevance Infiltration of NCPL may have limited additional effect if other treatments focused on controlling caries activity are successful.