Teaching Silver Diamine Fluoride in U.S. Dental Schools’ Predoctoral Curricula

Silver diamine fluoride (SDF), a low-cost topical agent used in many countries to arrest dental caries, was cleared as a desensitizing agent by the Food & Drug Administration for the U.S. market in 2014. The aim of this study was to survey U.S. dental schools regarding their teaching of SDF. Email invitations were sent to all accredited U.S. predoctoral dental education programs (n=66) in September 2016. Deans, chairs, and selected faculty members were asked to respond or forward the survey-link provided to the appropriate person in their school. Under the assumption that some respondents from the same school were unaware of SDF implementation across departments, multiple responses from the same school were collapsed for analysis. A total of 62 schools (94% response rate) responded to the survey, and 67.7% of them reported that SDF was part of their curricula. There was a wide variation across dental schools’ teaching about SDF indications and protocols of application. All but one school consistently agreed on using SDF for arresting caries on primary teeth. Only 18 respondents were able to confirm if there was an existing protocol at their school for the use of SDF. When re-application after initially arresting caries with SDF was taught, 50% of respondents advocated 2×/year re-application. Schools not teaching SDF (n=20) planned on including it in their curricula in the future. These findings suggest that, with the use of SDF increasing rapidly in the U.S. and its adoption in most dental schools, there is a need for the development of standardized evidence-based protocols.