First, tooth was cleaned with a wet cotton pellet. The gel was inserted using disposable syringe tip into the cavity and its color changed from clear to cloudy indicating the presence of infected tissues. After 40 seconds, the softened carious tissue was removed using excavator by gentle pressure. The remaining gel was removed with a cotton pellet. The procedure was repeated until there was no change in the gel color indicating that there was no more infected tissue.

This was assessed by measuring changes between the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14). The OHIP-14 includes 14 questions in seven dimensions with two questions for each dimension: functional limitation, physical pain, psychological discomfort, physical disability, psychological disability, social disability and handicap. Responses to the OHIP-14 items were measured on a 5-pont Likert scale ranging from never = 0; hardly ever = 1; occasionally = 2; fairly often = 3; to very often = 4. The OHIP-14 score is the sum of the scores of the 14 statements and ranges from 0 to 56 and from 0 to 8 for each dimension with higher scores indicating higher frequency of negative impact.

The scoring system was as follows: 0=present, without defect; 1=present, small defects on the margin measuring less than 0.5 mm in depth, with no need for repair; 2=present, small defects on the margin measuring 0.5 to 1.0 mm in depth, with need for repair; 3=present, gross defects on the margin measuring 1.0 mm or more in depth, with need for repair; 4=absent, restoration completely lost, need for treatment; 5=absent, other treatment had been performed for some reason; 6=tooth absent for some reason; 7=present, wear on surface less than 0.5 mm, with no need for replacement; 8=present, wear on surface greater than 0.5 mm, with need for replacement; 9=diagnosis impossible. Restorations having a score of 0, 1 or 7 were considered successful and those receiving a score of 2, 3, 4 or 8 were considered failures.