Clinical Effectiveness of Air Abrasion When Compared to Conventional Acid-etching Technique in Enhancing the Retention of Pit and Fissure Sealants: A Systematic Review

The purpose of our study was to perform a systematic review to assess and compare the effectiveness of the air abrasion technique with that of the conventional acid-etching technique performed before the placement of pit and fissure sealants. A search of studies was conducted in May 2021 using PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar databases. Clinical trials in the English language between 1997 and 2019 were included. The quality of the studies was analyzed using the Cochrane Collaboration tool. The search retrieved 276 references, out of which seven studies were included for a qualitative analysis. In these seven studies, the risk of bias across the Cochrane tool's domains varied from low to high. All the included studies considered acid-etching as a comparator to air abrasion technique either used alone or as an adjunct to acid-etching technique. When coverage of sealants or their retentivity was compared at different time intervals, it was more in the acid-etching group than in the air abrasion group. Similarly, carious lesions were seen more in the air abrasion group than in the acid-etching group. The air abrasion technique followed by acid-etching brought superior retention properties of sealants than the acid-etching technique alone. Bhadule SN, Kalaskar R, Kalaskar A, Clinical Effectiveness of Air Abrasion When Compared to Conventional Acid-etching Technique in Enhancing the Retention of Pit and Fissure Sealants: A Systematic Review. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2024;17(3):377-384.