Dental treatment outcomes in Thai children treated for severe early-childhood caries under general anaesthesia and non-pharmacological behaviour management: a retrospective study.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare dental-treatment outcomes, oral-hygiene improvement, and patient co-operation during follow-up visits between children treated under general anaesthesia (GA) and non-pharmacological behaviour management (NP).

Methods: This retrospective study reviewed the dental chart records of healthy patients less than 71-month-old with severe early childhood caries (S-ECC) from 2008 to 2020 with at least a 6-month follow-up. The demographical data, dental-treatment outcomes, oral-hygiene status, and patient behaviour at the follow-up visits were analysed by the Mann-Whitney U test, Pearson's Chi-square, Fisher's exact test, Friedman test, and Wilcoxon test with a significance level of 0.05.

Results: This study included 210 GA cases and 210 age-matched control NP cases. The GA group had a significantly higher caries experience, lower patient co-operation, poorer oral hygiene, and higher number of complex dental treatment than the NP group at baseline (p < 0.001). The number of children who had incomplete dental treatment under non-pharmacological behaviour management was higher than the GA group. After treatment, the number of new carious teeth in the NP group was significantly higher than in the GA group only at the 6-month follow-up. However, there was no significant difference in treatment failure, oral-hygiene improvement, and patient behaviour between groups.

Conclusion: Although patients in the GA group had higher dental and behaviour problems than the NP group, the overall dental-treatment outcomes, including oral hygiene and behaviour improvement, were not significantly different between groups Therefore, regular follow-up and preventive treatment in the maintenance phase are essential for children with severe early-childhood caries.