For anyone who has ever white-knuckled their way through a dentist's chair, a new study out of the United States has some genuinely good news.
A liquid that can be painted onto a cavity in seconds, with no drilling, no injections, and no sedation, has been shown in a major clinical trial to stop tooth decay in more than half of treated baby teeth. The treatment, called silver diamine fluoride or SDF, has been around for decades in other parts of the world. What the new study provides, for the first time, is the kind of large-scale American clinical evidence that could push it from a fringe workaround into mainstream dental care.
