India is the second biggest country in the world with a population of
approximately 1-00 billion; India is providing 7000 dentists per annum. Yet the
dentist: population ratio is 1:30,000. India cannot afford to spend on the highly
expensive dental restorative treatment. In order to bring down the disease
prevalence and severity, the only alternative is to implement organized and Oral
Health preventive programme. Considering the problem of delivery of oral care to
such a populous country, the ART approach, which does not require sophisticated
and expensive dental equipment, might be appropriate for the management of dental
caries in India.
One of the preventive restorative treatment concepts that had emerged in the
dental literature in the mid nineties was the Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART)
approach. ART is one of the existing minimal intervention approaches that removes
demineralised tooth tissues using hand instruments and restores the cleaned cavity
and adjacent pits and fissures with an adhesive filling material, usually a glass
ionomer cement. No electricity is required and local anaesthesia is rarely asked for
by people treated by the ART approach (Frencken et al, 1996).
In communities without access to traditional dental treatment, alternative
measures for treating caries are being used. One alternate is the Atruamatic
Restorative Treatment, which fits modern concepts of preventive and restorative oral
care in that it emphasize prevention and minimal invasiveness in treatment.
In patients with great treatment needs, an attempt is made to improve the oral
status with a view to arrest the destructive process of the disease and favorably
alter the micro biota. ART has become one of the treatment modalities available to
oral health workers in managing dental caries.
The present study assesses the survival of ART restorations in deciduous and
permanent teeth.