Clinical and Radiographic Success Rate of Pulp Treated Primary Molars Restored with Stainless Steel Crown (SSC) Versus Glass Ionomer-SSC: A Double-Blind Randomized Clinical Trial

Background: Maintaining an adequate coronal sealing is of a great importance and is the necessary prerequisite to maximize the long-term success rate of pulpotomy. Objectives: To compare the clinical and radiographic success of pulpotomized primary molars restored with stainless steel crown (SSC) versus glass ionomer (GI)-SSC. Methods: In this clinical trial, 47 children with age range of 4 - 8 years, requiring pulpotomy for both primary mandibular second molars were recruited. Teeth were randomly treated either with one of the two procedures including pulpotomy-SSC or pulpotomy-GI-SSC using a split mouth design. For each tooth, formocresol pulpotomy was performed and hard-setting zinc oxide eugenol was used as pulp dressing material. The whole for each tooth was completed in one session. One week interval was scheduled between two sides. Clinical and radiographic success rate was evaluated 6 months post-operatively. The date was analyzed using Fisher’s exact test at the significant level of 0.05. Results: At the end of evaluation, no clinical failure was observed in both treatments. Among the two, no significant difference was detected in terms of radiographic success rate (P = 0.198). Conclusions: Due to no significant difference between two restoration techniques, longer period of follow-up is recommended to evaluate the role of restoration on the outcome of the primary teeth pulpotomy.