Tomofumi Kawakami

The treatment of dental pit and fissure caries by an Er:YAG laser with an experimental tip

Abstract This is a report of newly developed experimental contact irradiation tip for an Er:YAG laser to remove dental pit and fissure caries. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the experimental tip in the removal of dental pit and fissure caries and filling by the restoration with low viscous composite resin or compomer as a filling material. In experiment 1, we examined the removal effects of this tip and the characteristic properties using bovine extracted teeth. In experiment 2, we evaluated the sealing ability of the restorative filled cavity it prepared by laser using die penetration test. The cavity prepared with the laser was a narrow cone shape. There was no difference in the sealing ability of the filling material between cavities formed by the air turbine and the laser. It is suggested that the treatment of dental pit and fissure caries is possible with Er:YAG lasers using the experimental tip and low viscous filling materials.

Cavity preparation for metal inlay by experimental tip for Er:YAG laser

Abstract The dental Er:YAG laser which is mainly used for dental hard tissue cutting was recently developed. In restorative dentistry, this laser has usually been used in composite resin restoration, but not for cast metal inlay restoration. This is because it is difficult to make the cavity form, such as retention form and convenience form, by using laser irradiation. At the 6th ISLD meeting, we reported an experimental chisel-shaped contact tip (ECSC tip) for use in cavity preparation for cast metal inlays. In this study, we examine a newly developed, modified experimental tip in inlay cavity preparation using an Erwin (ML22:HOYA & MORITA). This tip is composed of an arrangement of seven optical fibers having 0.2 or 0.3 mm diameter in a single row. The tooth-cutting efficacy of this tip was examined using extracted human and bovine teeth, and the irradiated sites were observed with SEM. The cutting efficacy of the experimental tip for both enamel and dentin was better than that of the ECSC tip. However, the surface flatness after cutting using experimental tip was poorer than the of the ECSC tip. It is suggested that inlay cavity preparation is possible using Erwin with this tip.