Pulpotomy in primary teeth: Biodentine™ versus calcium hydroxide. A systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction

Pulpotomy is the total amputation of coronal pulp tissue and subsequent placement of a pulpotomy agent over the root canal orifices, followed by a coronal seal. The most suitable pulpotomy agent for successful treatment outcomes remains controversial.

Objectives

To evaluate and compare the clinical and radiographic success of calcium hydroxide (CH) and Biodentine (BD) in primary tooth pulpotomy at 6 and 12 months.

Materials and methods

An automatised search of the PubMed-Medline, Web of Science, and SCOPUS electronic databases was performed to identify scientific articles on primary tooth pulpotomies with either calcium hydroxide (CH) or Biodentine (BD) as a pulpotomy agent, published until January 2024. The software used for meta-analysis was R 4.3.1 (R Core Team, 2023).

Results

Of the 594 potentially eligible articles, 14 met the inclusion criteria: seven articles on CH pulpotomy and seven articles on BD pulpotomy with 6- and 12-months of follow-up. The meta-analysis concluded a mean clinical success rate of 91.8 % at 6 months and 79.0 % at 12 months for the CH group, and 99.2 % at 6 months and 98.8 % at 12 months for the BD group. In terms of the mean radiographic success, the CH group achieved 74.2 % at 6 months and 63.7 % at 12 months, whereas the BD group achieved 99.4 % at 6 months and 98.4 % at 12 months. In comparison, the meta-analysis concluded a marginally significant difference in clinical success in favour of the BD group at 6 months (p = 0.091). At 12 months, clinical success was significant in the BD group (p = 0.023). Regarding radiographic success, a significant difference in favour of the BD group was observed at 6 (p = 0.008) and 12 months (p < 0.001).

Conclusion

BD showed significantly higher clinical and radiographic success than CH in pulpotomy.