Sealant Penetration into Occlusal Fissures: An In-Vitro Optical Coherence Tomography Study

Objective: This study was designed to use Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to quantify depth of occlusal fissures on premolar teeth and to quantitatively evaluate the penetration of pit and fissures sealants relative to fissure depth. The study aimed to evaluate the penetrability of Pit and Fissure Sealant (PFS) in covering the full-depth of different occlusal fissure depths using Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomography (SS-OCT). Methods: Ninety-seven investigation sites on f occlusal fissures of fifteen premolar teeth with International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) scores of 01 or 02 were categorized using SS-OCT into four groups (smooth, shallow, intermediate, and deep fissures). After PFS placement, cross-sectional images of these fissures were observed again with SS-OCT. Results: The result of this study shows that PFS can fully penetrate the smooth fissures (100%) followed by shallow fissures (94.2%) and intermediate fissures (47.6%). Incomplete full depth PFS penetration can be seen in all deep fissures (100%). Conclusion: The depth of the fissure will largely affect the penetrability of PFS into the fissure.