Lay summary
Dental caries is the most common chronic childhood disease in New Zealand. Traditional treatment involves surgical removal of the infected dental tissues and restoration using a filling material. The Hall Technique (HT) is known as a ‘no-drill, no pain’ restorative procedure using metal preformed crowns (PFCs). Although effective clinically, this technique has an aesthetic limitation—the crown is silver rather than tooth-coloured. The metal PFCs also have other disadvantages: cost to healthcare providers is high and placement can be difficult. Our research team has successfully developed a novel white shell crown system for the Hall Technique, improving both aesthetics and crown placement, while reducing treatment costs. Tooth-coloured prototype crowns have been validated and we are preparing for a multi-centre national clinical trial. Therapeutic feasibility needs to be tested, to inform protocol development for the main clinical trial.