Effectiveness Of Topical Fluoride Gels To Inhibit Artificial Caries Formation

Objectives: To compare the anti-cariogenic effectiveness between a local-made 1.23% acidulated phosphate fluoride (APF) gel and the commercial fluoride gel products in artificial caries formation and effect of different application times on inhibition of artifiical caries formation. Methods: 36 human premolars extracted for orthodontic purpose were used in this study. Each tooth was divided into longitudinal tooth halves and polished to get a flat enamel surface. Acid-resistant varnish was applied, leaving a window (1.5×2 mm) exposed on enamel surface. For each tooth, one half was randomly assigned to one of the treatment groups 1) Pascal [Pascal, USA], 2) local-made CU gel [Chulalongkorn University, Thailand] and 3) 60-SECOND gel [Germiphene, Canada]. The other half served as paired-control. Fluoride gels were applied according to the manufacturers' recommendations (4 minutes for group1 and group2, 1 minute for group3). Then, artificial caries lesions were created on the APF-applied and paired-control enamel surfaces by pH-cycling treatment for 7 days. After that, the lesion depth of caries were investigated by polarized light microscope and measured by Adobe Photoshop program (version7). The mean lesion depth was analyzed between experimental and control groups using paired t-test and between experimental groups using one way ANOVA at the significant level of 0.05. Results: The lesion depths in the control and test groups for Pascal gel were 89.81±8.58 and 27.55±9.16 µm, for CU gel were 83.46±16.45 and 27.04±9.14 µm and for 60-SECOND gel were 86.78±16.12 and 28.58±9.55 µm respectively. A significant difference was found between the paired control and APF treated halves. No significant difference was found between the test groups. No significant difference between APF-1min and 4 min groups. Conclusion: CU gel provided the same degree of artificial caries inhibition as the other APF formulas and the application time did not have any effects on inhibition of artificial caries formation.