IS COMPLETE CARIES REMOVAL OUTDATED?
The International Caries Consensus Collaboration (ICCC) identified ‘dental caries’ as the name of the disease that dentists should manage, and the importance of controlling the activity of existing cavitated lesions to preserve hard tissues, maintain pulp sensibility and retain functional teeth for the long term. Currently, caries management is based on minimal intervention dentistry concepts. In order to preserve dental structures as much as possible and avoid irreversible damage to the pulp, some conservative techniques related to carious dentine removal have been proposed. In deep carious lesions, the most commonly used procedure was complete excavation in one step, Two alternative options have been proposed to minimize the risks of pulp exposure and postoperative pulpal complications, one is the stepwise technique (complete excavation in two steps) and second approach is partial (incomplete/selective) excavation. This lecture will focus on indications and outcomes of interventions including the use of dental materials, discussion on availability of new data which play a major role in planning evidence-based dental treatment beneficial for the patient.
