ABSTRACT
Dental caries is a well-recognized complex oral disease, with a behavioral-biofilm-sugar dependency. This chapter focuses on a small piece of the puzzle when addressing dental caries disease. When preventive measures or early diagnosis of the carious lesions has failed, and the diagnosis is made at later stages, a restoration is usually performed for lesion management. Dental biomaterials should be biologically safe and ideally should also be able to overcome the main reasons for direct restoration failure—secondary caries and fracture. Dental materials can reconstruct the tooth structure lost and restore the function and aesthetic of the dental element. Resin composite, amalgam, and glass ionomer cement are materials widely used in dentistry to restore teeth. The chapter provides a summary of the main pathways for polymeric restorative materials with anti-caries proprieties. It also discusses possibilities and future perspectives of these dental materials for inhibiting secondary caries formation.
