Mineral trioxide aggregate vs. formocresol in pulpotomized primary molars: a preliminary report.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Aluminum Compounds in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The aim of this study was to compare the effect of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) to that of formocresol (FC) as pulp dressing agents in pulpotomized primary molars with carious pulp exposure.

Who Took Part

The study group was 26 children.

The age groups tagged for this paper are young children and children, both men and women.

Forty-five primary molars of 26 children were treated by a conventional pulpotomy technique.

The teeth were randomly assigned to the MTA (experimental) or FC (control) group by a toss of a coin.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

Because people in this Aluminum Compounds study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Following removal of the coronal pulp and hemostasis the pulp stumps were covered with an MTA paste in the experimental group.

In the control group, FC was placed with a cotton pellet over the pulp stumps for 5 minutes and removed; the pulp stumps were then covered by zinc oxide-eugenol (ZOE) paste.

The teeth of both groups were restored with stainless steel crowns.

Eighteen children with 32 teeth arrived for clinical and radiographic follow-up evaluation ranging from 6 to 30 months.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Aluminum Compounds, Calcium Compounds, Chi-Square Distribution, Crowns, Dental Caries, Dental Pulp Capping and Dental Pulp Cavity.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Aluminum Compounds in 26 children.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2001 (Pediatric dentistry), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.