pit and fissure sealant versus fluoride varnish in prevention of occlusal caries

introduction: it was to compare the efficacy of semiannually fluoride varnish application versus pit and fissure sealant to reduce occlusal caries incidence. materials and methods: a randomized parallel designed study was conducted with 352 child-ren aged 6-7 years. participants were allocated into biannual application of varnish (n=179) (naf 5 %( durafluor, dentsply®, latin america) or resin-based fissure sealant (n=173) (eco seal, korea®) single application without previous tooth preparation. two visual-tactile methods including who and nyvad criteria were used for caries detection. the unit of analysis was tooth surface. χ2 test, t-test, fisher exact, and multi-variable logistic regression were used for statis-tical analysis. results: proportion of caries free (dmf=0) were 79.8% and 79.1% among the sealant and var-nish groups respectively. by using nyvad visual-tactile criteria 60.4% and 50.2% of surfaces re-mained sound in sealant and varnish groups respectively (p < 0.001). the prevented fraction of sealant to varnish by two measures was 3.46 and 20.5 respectively. regression model showed sealant application (or=0.34) and tooth brushing >2 times/day (or=0.8) were protective factors while dmfs>4(or=0.08), and snack con-sumption >2 times/day (or=1.3) were risk fac-tors of caries incidence. conclusion: the results of this study suggest that semiannual fluoride varnish application can be recommended for preventing and reducing occlusal caries in low caries risk population.