Professional tooth cleaning: Cleaning efficacy of a novel air polishing powder

Objectives: Patients complain that the water-powder-air-stream of air-polishing is unpleasant at teeth with hypersensitivity pain sensation. For that purpose Clinpro™ Glycine Prophy Powder with TCP was developed to allow professional tooth cleaning with immediate hypersensitivity pain relief by occlusion of dentinal tubules.
The objective was to evaluate the cleaning performance of Clinpro™ Glycine Prophy Powder with TCP, a new glycine-based air-polishing-powder which contains fumaric acid coated tricalciumphoshate (<10%), on stained bovine enamel surface in comparison to other commercialized air-polishing-powders.
Methods: Clinpro™ Glycine Prophy Powder with TCP, 3M ESPE, Clinpro™ Prophy Powder (glycine based powder), 3M ESPE; Air-Flow^® Classic(bicarbonate based powder), EMS, and Flash Pearls, carbonate based powder) (NSK) were applied with an Air-Flow^® Handy 2 (EMS) air-polishing-device. The color of stained bovine enamel was measured with LAB-Scan device Color i7-benchtop spectrophotometer (X-Rite) before and after 5 sec air polishing treatment (treatment angle 60°; distance 4.3mm). Three stained bovine samples were treated per air-polishing powder and the color change (ΔE*_ab) was measured twice at each specimen. The higher the ΔE*_ab value the higher the cleaning performance of the air-polishing powder.
Results: The highest cleaning efficacy has been observed with the novel Clinpro™ Glycine Prophy Powder with TCP (ΔE*_ab=33.9±2.1). The other air polishing powders showed ΔE*_ab values 23.2±3.1 (Clinpro™ Prophy Powder), 23.1±1.5(Air-Flow Classic), and 24.2±2.7(Flash Pearl). Statistical evaluation with One-way ANOVA revealed that Clinpro™ Glycine Prophy Powder with TCP has a significantly higher cleaning performance (p<0.05) as all the other tested air-polishing powders which did not show statistically differences in cleaning efficacy in pair wise comparisons.
Conclusions: Addition of fumaric-acid coated tricalciumphosphate to the glycine-based new air-polishing-powder increase cleaning performance significantly and is superior over the other air polishing powders tested under these in vitro conditions.