Dental Sealants

Highly effective in preventing decay on the biting surfaces of your chewing teeth, dental sealants are a simple procedure in which a tooth-colored acrylic “coating” is painted onto the surface of the tooth. This effectively “seals” the deep grooves, acting as a barrier and protecting enamel from plaque and acids.

Sealants protect the depressions and grooves of your teeth from food particles and plaque that brushing and flossing can’t reach.

Easy to apply, sealants take only a few minutes per each tooth. Sealants hold up well under the force of normal chewing and can last several years before a reapplication is needed.

Our office recommends sealants for a child’s 6-year old molars and 12-year old molars. 

Here’s part of an article from ADA News that explains the benefits of sealants. To make it short, sealants significantly decrease cavities on the chewing surface of the molars.

“Evidence Indicates Children Strongly Benefit From Sealants. The ADA News (7/25, Manchir) reports that the August edition of The Journal of the American Dental Association contains “a systematic review” of the use of sealants as well as “clinical practice guidelines” that have been updated as a result of that review, which indicate the benefit of using sealants to prevent and manage occlusal caries in children and adolescents. “The guidelines show that sealants are more effective in managing pit and fissure caries than fluoride treatments, such as varnish,” said the article’s lead author, Dr. John Timothy Wright. “They also show that benefits are obtained by the variety of materials currently marketed in the United States for sealant use (e.g. resin based materials, glass ionomer materials, polyacid-modified resin, and resin-modified glass ionomers).” According to the article, the analysis indicated that “children treated with sealants have about a 70 to 80 percent reduction in the incidence of occlusal caries compared with children that do not receive sealants.””