This paper focuses on fluoride-containing varnishes regarding the history of their development and application in dentistry. Specifically, the paper focuses on the use of this form of varnish in a process meant to improve shortcomings of existing topical fluoride vehicles and consequently prevent or reduce the occurrence of dental caries (Beltrán-Aguilar, Lockwood, & Goldstein, 589). The paper outlines the clinical use of this type of fluoride vehicle, its cariostatic mechanism, efficacy, safety, and toxicity. The article was chosen as it is quite relevant to the field of dentistry and provides a deeper understanding of fluoride varnishes and how they work to prevent dental caries.
The authors undertake a detailed literature review that examines several aspects relating to the use of fluoride varnishes in clinical environments. This literature is all peer-reviewed and drawn from notable journals, hence the information contained therein is credible. The paper outlines several clinical trials aimed at determining the efficacy of fluoride varnishes and their findings. Generally, fluoride varnishes have been found to reduce caries by between 18 and 77 percent. The authors make a good effort to increase the level of evidence, that is, almost all observations, statistics, and findings mentioned in the paper are drawn from actual experiments that were carried out.
The main population group affected by the findings of the study is children as evidenced by the individual clinical trials that the paper draws upon. Most of the studies mentioned in the paper focus on children and this can be justified by the fact that dental caries occurs mainly in childhood during teeth development. The paper outlines the intervention procedure involving clinical trials to determine the effects of fluoride varnishes from fluoride gels. Comparison is done against children who do not use fluoride varnishes. The outcome is an illustration of the benefits of using fluoride varnishes instead of the conventional fluoride gels in dentistry, particularly among children.
The strength of the paper lies in its detailed investigation of the efficacy of fluoride varnishes, particularly in comparison with other types of topical fluorides. The authors compare varnishes with other types of topical fluorides including acidulated phosphate fluoride gel and Duraphat. The authors report that fluoride varnishes are better than other fluoride gels since they are more efficient and are less likely than gels to be ingested by young children. The paper also investigates the safety and toxicity of fluoride varnishes, especially in consideration of their high fluoride concentrations which can be as much as 22,600 ppm F–, which becomes toxic when it enters the body. However, they refer to earlier experiments undertaken by Roberts and Longhurst which showed none of the children participating in the study received acute toxic levels of fluoride. Similar findings were made by Ekstrand and associates.
Despite the detailed study, this paper exhibits some limitations that could undermine the validity of its findings. For instance, it is observable that most of the clinical trials and other experiments that Beltrán-Aguilar, Lockwood, and Goldstein refer to mainly focus on young children. These include Roberts and Longhurst’s study which focused on children between the ages of 2 and 14, Weinstein and colleagues’ demonstrations which used 62 children between the ages of 12 and 14, and Petersson and colleagues’ study that focused on children between the ages of 4 and 5, among other experiments and surveys. Although tooth decay and other forms of dental caries occur mostly during childhood, perhaps increased levels of fluoride could induce other forms of caries in adults or old persons, such as a change of tooth color as observed in persons using sodium fluoride (Beltrán-Aguilar, Lockwood, & Goldstein, 590). Hence, future studies should focus on a wider age bracket so that the results can be applied to the general population. Besides, larger sample sizes should be used to increase the accuracy of the findings since most of the studies used in this paper used smaller sample sizes that are not reflective of the population that the study implies.
Works Cited
Beltrán-Aguilar, Eugenio D., Lockwood, Stuart A., and Goldstein, Jonathan W. Fluoride Varnishes. JADA, Vol. 131, 2000, 589-596.