Effectiveness of a fluoride-releasing orthodontic primer in reducing demineralization around brackets – a systematic review

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This review aims to evaluate the available evidence to assess and understand the effectiveness of fluoride-releasing primers in reducing white spot lesions (WSLs) around orthodontic brackets.

Materials and Methods

The protocol for the review was registered in the PROSPERO database (www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero, protocol number – CRD42021230588). A systematic search of the scientific databases (PubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL, Google Scholar, and LILACS) was conducted to identify relevant studies. After screening titles and abstracts 120 articles were eliminated and the full text was sought for the four studies. Three articles were included in the qualitative analysis.

Results

All studies included in the qualitative analysis showed a high risk of bias. On visual examination, no studies identified a significant difference in the incidence of WSLs among the intervention and control groups. On assessing WSLs using laser fluorescence, only one study identified a significant difference in the incidence of WSLs between the groups.

Conclusion

With the limited available evidence, it can be concluded that there is a difference in the incidence of WSLs when fluoride-releasing primers are used to bond orthodontic brackets, although this decrease in incidence is not significant statistically. Further research is required to fully evaluate the effectiveness of using fluoride-releasing primers in orthodontics.

KEYWORDS:

• Fluoride release
• white-spot lesions
• orthodontics
• bonding
• primer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

This review article does not require an approval by the ethics committee.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.