Effectiveness of Preventive Treatments in Dentine Erosion

Objectives: Dental wear represents an irreversible loss of dental hard tissue responsible for serious aesthetic and functional damage. This in vitro study evaluated the effectiveness of different preventive treatments on dentine (with and without abrasion) against tooth erosion on Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT).
Methods: Third-six root dentine fragments (4x3mm) from bovine incisors were initially eroded with liquid HCl (pH 1.2) for one-day with one-third of the surface protected (control area) and the other two-thirds exposed. The specimens were randomly assigned into three groups, according to the treatment protocol: no treatment (G1), chitosan (G2), and 4% TiF4 varnish (G3). Each group was submitted to erosion with liquid and gaseous HCl (6x/day/20s) for 6-days. The abrasion factor was done with Oral-B toothbrushes (2x/day/20s/200gf) with dentifrice. Optical Coherence Tomography was employed to analyze the mineral loss that occurred in the demarcated regions on the dentine surface, peak intensity (dB) and width (μm) were obtained and integrated values calculated. The data were analyzed by ANOVA three-way and Tukey test (α=0.05).


Results: The G3 (58.42±12.93dB) was statistically different (p<0.05) from the groups G1 (69.31±13.59dB) and G2 (67.34±11.05dB). Both the acid (liquid and gaseous HCl) and the abrasion factor did not affect the behavior of the groups.
Conclusions: 4% TiF4 varnish showed a higher protective effect against the erosive process with a lower mineral loss.