AsianScientist (Jan. 31, 2018) – In a study published in Implant Dentistry, scientists in Japan have used microbubbles to remove dental plaques on dental implants.
Whether through an accident or a disease, tooth loss can cause many inconveniences. Dental implants such as crowns, however, have allowed people to overcome most of these and live a better quality of life.
But just like normal teeth, these dental implants require proper care and oral hygiene to prevent further complications, such as the inflammation of the tissues surrounding the implants. While the buildup of dental plaque mainly occurs on the crown, plaque also adheres to the exposed parts of the screw that holds the dental fixture in place, and these parts are much harder to clean because they contain microgrooves that make them fit better into the upper or lower jaw bones.
In the present study, Professor Hitoshi Soyama from Tohoku University and his team from Showa University in Japan conducted a study to look for better ways for dentists to remove plaque from dental implants. The team wanted to investigate the efficiency of a cavitating jet, where high-speed fluid is injected by a nozzle through water to create very tiny bubbles of vapor. When these bubbles collapse, they produce strong shockwaves that can remove contaminants.
The team compared the cleaning effect of a cavitating jet to that of a water jet, which has been used for a long time to remove plaque from dental implants. They grew a biofilm over three days in the mouths of four volunteers, then proceeded to clean their teeth with the two different methods, measuring the amount of plaque remaining at several time intervals.
While there was little difference between the amounts of dental plaque removed by both methods after one minute of cleaning, that changed after longer exposure. After three minutes, the cavitating jet had removed about a third more plaque than the water jet did, leaving little plaque stuck to the implant at the end of the experiment. The cavitating jet was also able to remove the plaque not only from the root section of the screws, but also from the harder-to-reach crest section.
“Conventional methods cannot clean plaques on the surface of dental implants very well, so this new method could give dentists a new tool to better manage these fixtures which are becoming more common,” said Soyama.
Previous research has shown that water flow exerts shear stress to remove the biofilm. In addition to this shear effect, the cavitating jet also produces a considerable force when the bubbles collapse, which helps remove particles from the biofilm and carry them away.
The researchers suggest that the two processes probably work in synergy to make the cavitating jet superior to the water jet when cleaning the plaque off the irregular surface of dental implants.
The article can be found at: Yamada et al. (2017) Removal of Oral Biofilm on an Implant Fixture by a Cavitating Jet.
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Source: Tohoku University; Photo: Shutterstock.
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