Effectiveness of remineralising agents in prevention and treatment of orthodontically induced white spot lesions: a protocol for a systematic review incorporating network meta-analysis

The objective of this study will be to compare the effectiveness and safety of current remineralising agents used in the management of WSLs in patients treated with fixed orthodontic appliances in any orthodontic setting.MethodsLiterature searches will be conducted in several electronic databases (from inception onwards): MEDLINE (via Ovid), Scopus, Embase, the Web of Science, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), among others. Grey literature will be identified through searching clinical trials registries. Randomised controlled trials that compared the effectiveness of different remineralisation agents in the prevention and treatment of WSLs will be included. Two researchers will independently screen all citations, full-text articles, and abstract data. The study risk bias will be appraised using an appropriate tool. The primary outcomes will be WSLs incidence and severity of WSLs. Secondary outcomes will be subjective measures of WSLs and adverse effects. The mean difference (MD) and relative risk (RR) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) will be chosen as effect measures for continuous and binary outcomes, respectively. If feasible, fixed and random-effects pairwise meta-analyses and frequentist network meta-analyses will be conducted where appropriate.DiscussionThis network meta-analysis will compare the effectiveness of remineralising agents in the prevention and treatment of orthodontically induced WSLs. By integrating the evidenc...
Source: Systematic Reviews - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research