Methods: Artificially prepared subsurface lesions in 24 teeth were divided into four groups and each group was remineralized with; 1) Nano-hydroxyapatite solution, 2) Oravive, 3) Theramed, 4) Elmex Aminfluorid. For the determination of remineralization effect, the high resolution micro-computed tomography (µCT) images before and after remineralization were compared with the images acquired from the quantitative light-induced fluorescence (QLF), as well. The post-hoc Tukey's multiple comparison tests and the Pearson correlation were used to assess the overall diagnostic performance of subsurface enamel lesions of QLF and µCT.
Results: During the remineralization phase of the study, the mean fluorescence values obtained from the QLF evaluation increased with the increasing remineralization time and this was experimentally confirmed with µCT evaluation by a decrease in local thickness of in-vitro-caries lesion. All lesions showed evidence of remineralization and a linear relationship of remineralization with time was observed.
Conclusions: The nano-Hydroxyapatite material which exhibited similar performance like as amine-fluoride containing toothpaste for remineralizing of enamel subsurface lesions might be bring a new point of view for further cariology studies. In addition the µCT is a promising tool for quantification of mineral loss from enamel and for monitoring long-term remineralization process of artificially prepared subsurface enamel lesions.