In this blog Mark-Steven Howe takes a look at two recent systematic reviews relating to depression in dental students. One review looked at levels of depression before the covid pandemic and one investigates depression during the pandemic.
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This review of the efficacy of topical sialogogue spray containing malic acid 1% for treating xerostomia included 5 RCTs involving 244 patients. While the findings suggested a benefit the available studies are small, of short duration and none are at low risk of bias.
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This review of the most effective method of anaesthesia for mandibular posterior teeth with symptomatic irreversible pulpitis included 22 RCTs. The findings suggest that buccal infiltraion and inferior alveolar nerve block ,Vazirani-Akinosi nerve block and introsseus injections performed better but the evidence was only of low to very low certainty.
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This Cochrane review update of interceptive procedures included 4 RCTs to promote the eruption of palatally displaced permanent canines (PDCs) involving a total of 199 patients. The findings indicate that extraction of the primary canine man increase the the proportion of erupted PDCs but the evidence is very uncertain.
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This Cochrane review update of the effects of different orthodontic treatments for posterior crossbites included 31 RCTS eight of whihc were at low risk of bias. They found that for children iaged 7 to 11 years old), quad-helix and expansion plates were more beneficial than no treatment for correcting posterior crossbites.
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This Cochrane review of the effects of orthodontic interventions for preventing or correcting crowded teeth in children included 24 RCTs. A wide range of interventions were assessed typically is small single studies so the available evidence is of very low certainty.
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This review of whether chemotherapy, in addition to radiotherapy and/or surgery for oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancer, results in improved overall survival included 100 studies. the findings indicated some benefit only when used in a few specific circumstances.
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Mark Steven Howe takes a detailed look at this Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) assessing the relative performance of diffferent biomaterials used for maxillary sinus augmentation. 34 RCTs with 28 different treatment options providing a large number of potential pairwise comparisons although only a small number used direct data. The findings suggest little difference beween the various biomaterials but the available studies are small with only 5 being at low risk of bias.
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This review of the the treatment duration required to achieve whole-arch alignment of the mandibular dentition using fixed appliances included 35 RCTs. The pooled duration for whole-arch alignment in the mandible was 263.0 days/8.8 months (95%CI: 6.2 to11.3 months). Mandibular incisor alignment was achieved in 100.7 days/3.4 months (95%CI: 2.8 to 3.9 months).
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In her debut blog, Lauren Breen summarises a paper relevant to her Active Ingredients project, which seeks to understand the impact that grief reduction interventions can have on reducing anxiety and depression in young people aged 14-24 years.
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