Evidence Based Effectiveness of Pit and Fissure Sealants Applied by Students and Paediatric Dentists After Five Years
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Pit and fissure sealants are widely researched in laboratory and clinical trials. Both experienced paediatric dentists as well as student dentists often use sealants as a preventive measure in paediatric dentistry. Objectives: 1. Compare the outcomes of pit and fissure sealants applied to primary and permanent dentitions by students and paediatric dentists; 2. Compare the outcomes of sealants placed in clinical and laboratory settings. Materials and Methods: Data were collected for 6871 sealants placed during a five year period, from patient charts at a private paediatric clinic (PP) and a student teaching facility, Simulated Practice Environment Clinic (SPEC) at Schulich Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. Sealed teeth were identified as intact, lost sealant, or carious. Results: Statistical analysis using the Chi-square test was performed. Of all the sealants placed by students and dentists, after five years, 88.6% were intact, 7.2% were partially or totally lost and 4.1% had caries. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) in the performance of paediatric dentists and students on primary teeth. There was statistically significant difference (p<0.01) but no clinical difference between dentists and students in the treatment of permanent teeth. The laboratory success of 95% corresponded well with the clinical success of 93.5% and 98.4% caries free permanent teeth, performed by students and dentists, respectively. Conclusions: 1. After five years, 96% of sealed and resealed teeth stayed caries free. 2. Laboratory studies can be good predictors of how sealant materials may perform in vivo.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.020 | 0.071 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".