What are Dental Tooth Sealants?
Sealants are any material that are bonded onto the tooth surfaces to protect them from attack by bacteria that cause decay. Most commonly, sealants are clear or tooth coloured materials that are placed in the grooves(fissures) of the biting surfaces of back teeth. Sealants can be different materials, but they all work by turning a deep trapping groove into a shallow, easily cleaned surface by sticking to the tooth on the biting surface. Back teeth have deep grooves and pits that are very difficult to keep clean. Plaque, which is a nearly invisible (tooth coloured) film of bacteria and food, collects in these grooves, which are almost impossible to clean thoroughly. Chewing just compresses food and sticky sweet things deeper into these cracks, where decay can then weaken the same spot, again and again. If you look where people have fillings, especially the metal ones, they are nearly always on the biting surfaces, because decay started easily in these grooves we call fissures, Other gro
