Mineral Trioxide Aggregate Apexogenesis: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the clinical and radiographic outcomes of apexogenesis with mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) against other pulpotomy agents in carious/traumatized immature permanent teeth. DATA SOURCE: A web-based search for possibly relevant scientific papers in the English language between January 2013 and August 2022 was undertaken in the databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE. Only randomized clinical trials that compared MTA against other pulpotomy medicaments conducted in vital immature permanent dentition with open apex, having a sample size of not less than 20 with at least 6 months follow-up, reporting clinical or radiographic outcomes were included in the current review. Case studies, case series, animal studies, in vitro studies, non-clinical/clinical trials on mature/necrotic permanent or primary dentition, systematic reviews, and letters to the editor were excluded. STUDY SELECTION: A total of 236 articles were retrieved from the databases during the search procedure. Two independent investigators conducted a full-text review of 83 studies following a screening of titles and abstracts. Eventually, seven studies were considered for the review. The Cochrane bias assessment tool was used to evaluate the quality of included studies. Five of the selected studies were assigned a low evidence level, whereas two were rated a high evidence level. CONCLUSION: The present review indicated that the diverse pulpotomy agents had comparable clinical outcomes with MTA for apexogenesis in traumatized or carious immature permanent teeth. However, there is a lack of substantial information to draw firm conclusions about the benefits of one material over another.