Effect of varnish fluoride on prevention of baby bottle tooth decay in 12- 36 months-old babies

The baby bottle tooth decay is a prevalent type of caries, affecting most of the teeth in deciduous dentition, and it is mostly caused by overnight bottle feeding. Given the importance of implementing preventive procedures, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of varnish fluoride on prevention of baby bottle tooth decay in deciduous dentition. This experimental study was carried out on 52 kindergarten children aged one to three years-old in Tehran. The right maxillary centrals and laterals were considered as cases and the left counterparts as control group. Bifluoride-12 varnish (Voco, Germany) was applied twice over a 6 months period on the buccal and palatal surfaces of 104 case teeth. The results were compared with equal number of control teeth. Cochran–Q, Chi–square and Fisher's exact tests were used for data analysis. After fluoride therapy, 3 (5.77%), 11 (21.16%), and 8 (15.38%) teeth developed new caries in laterals of case groups, centrals and laterals of control groups respectively. None of the centrals in the case group developed new caries. The observed group differences were statistically significant (P<0.001). According to Chi–square and Fisher’s exact tests, factors such as patients’ age, gender, geographic region, nutrition habits, oral hygiene and antibiotic consumption had no effect on caries prevalence (P>0.05). According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that, fluoride varnish may be considered as effective preventive procedure in nursing bottle caries reduction in children with primary dentition. Key words: Baby bottle tooth decay - Nursing caries - Fluoride varnish. Corresponding Author: Dr. Mehran M., Assistant Professor, Pedodontics Department, Faculty of Dentistry, Shahed University. Tehran, Iran.