Nikhil Srivastava

Early Childhood Caries (ECC) is a complex disease, which commonly involves the maxillary primary incisors within a month of their eruption and rapidly spreads to involve other primary teeth as well. Due to its aggressive nature of, demineralized and hypoplastic areas can rapidly develop cavitation. If left untreated, the disease rapidly progresses to involve the dental pulp, leading to severe infection and at times possibly life-threatening facial space involvement too. A high rate of children requiring additional repetitive treatment and low levels of compliance with follow-up care can influence a pediatric dentist's decision for a more definitive restorative management of ECC such as full coverage restorations. With the advent of globalization and an ever increasing media exposure, dentistry has entered into a new field of awareness and self-consciousness where even the pediatric population, with age as less as 3 years want to look better. Thus, in quest for a more reliable aesthetic full coverage option has led to the evolution of Zirconia crowns in Pediatric dentistry. This book presents an overview of zirconia, its advantages/disadvantages etc. in the pediatric population.

Dental caries is a localized post eruptive pathological process of external origin involving softening of the hard tooth tissue and proceeding to the formation of cavity as defined by WHO. It is the most prevalent disease in the humans and manifests with an extremely high caries index in several countries. Early Childhood Caries (ECC) is an infectious disease of the primary teeth in children which leads to severe destruction of the teeth and results in damage to their permanent successors teeth if not treated at an early stage. If the grossly carious primary molar is left untreated may lead to functional disharmony, development of deleterious habit and can affect the permanent tooth buds. In an attempt to widen as biologically and conservatively as possible, several authors have suggested the use of tooth fragments or extracted human teeth as a restorative material to rehabilitate severely destroyed tooth crowns. The technique is simple, allows the preservation of sound tooth structure and provides excellent aesthetics. This paper aims to review the evolution, methods and effects of these biological restorations.

Silver Diamine Fluoride arrests and halt the caries progression and simultaneously prevent the formation of new caries. It is a potentially viable option when no other treatment is available. This is probably not an optimal clinical procedure but is a palliative and inexpensive alternative in situations where not even simplified techniques such as the atraumatic restorative treatment are available. SDF has been used to reduce the incidence and progression of caries in primary dentition and the results have been well documented. The low cost of SDF and its simplicity in application suggest that SDF is an appropriate therapeutic agent for use in community dental health projects. Thus, the availability of a safe, effective, efficient, and equitable caries preventive agent like SDF appears to meet the criteria of both the WHO Millennium Goals and the US Institute of Medicine's criteria for 21st century medical care.

Minimally invasive endodontics (MIE) is a concept of maximum preservation of the healthy coronal, cervical and radicular tooth structure during the endodontic treatment. For successful treatment outcome, there must be a balance between conservation and elimination of tooth structure during endodontic procedure. The concepts of MIE can be incorporated in various steps and phases of endodontic treatment, namely (1) access opening, (2) cleaning and shaping of the root canal as well as in (3) surgical endodontics. Although further research is needed, MIE has the potential for dentists to apply a more conservative approach towards treatment and simultaneously offer patients a more friendly and health-orientated treatment option.