Clinical and radiographic comparison of various medicaments used for pulpotomy in primary molars: A randomized clinical trial

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and compare the efficacy of ferric sulfate, glutaraldehyde, and mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) as pulpotomy medicaments in primary molars. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a perspective randomized clinical trial. A total of 90 molars from 42 children aged 4-8 years were selected for pulpotomy procedure. Teeth were randomly divided into three equal groups of 30 teeth each. Teeth in Group I were intended to be treated with ferric sulfate, Group II were intended to be treated with buffered glutaraldehyde and Group III with MTA. All the molars were evaluated clinically at 24 h and both clinically and radio graphically at 1, 3, and 6 months. The observations were statistically analyzed using Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: After 1 month, there was no clinical finding observed in all the three groups. At 3 months postoperative evaluation, 13.3% of teeth in Group I and 12.5% of teeth in Group II had mobility. At 6 months interval, pain and sinus formation each was noted in 9.1% of primary teeth in Group I while periodontal ligament widening was reported in 66.7% of teeth in Group I and 85.7% of teeth in Group II. CONCLUSION: MTA exhibited overall best results as pulpotomy agent for primary molars followed by 15.5% ferric sulfate, whereas 2% buffered glutaraldehyde was found to be least effective as a pulpotomy agent.