Aim: to assess the clinical and radiographic success rates of direct pulp capping versus pulpotomy using mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) in the treatment of primary molars.
Patients and methods: The current study was planned as a split-mouth randomized clinical trial. The trial included 50 healthy, cooperative children (32 boys [64%] and 18 girls [36%]) aged 4–7 years, with two deep carious lower second primary molars requiring vital pulp therapy. One hundred lower second primary molars were randomly classified into two groups according to the technique used: Group (1): direct pulp capping using MTA and Group 2: pulpotomy using MTA. Then each case was followed clinically and radiologically every 3, 6, and 12 months to detect success and failure rates. The clinical and radiographic outcome criteria were treated as binary data (present or absent) and tested using Mcnemar's chi-square test. The alpha level of significance was set to 0.05 at 95% CI.
Results: Over the follow-up period, no significant statistical difference was found between the two groups (p-value > 0.05). The overall success rates were 100% for both techniques clinically and radiographically after a 12-month follow-up period.
Conclusion: In cooperative patients, in well-chosen cases, both direct pulp capping and pulpotomy may be dependable options for treating deeply decayed primary molars.