Artificial methods of dentine caries induction: A hardness and morphological comparative study

Area of Science:

• Dental Research
• Cariology
• Biomaterials Science

Background:

• Dentine caries lesions are a significant dental issue.
• Accurate in vitro models are crucial for studying caries progression and testing treatments.
• Existing methods for creating artificial caries lesions vary in their ability to mimic natural lesions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of chemical (acidified gel, pH-cycling) and microbiological methods in generating artificial dentine caries lesions.
• To compare the created lesions with naturally occurring dentine caries.

Main Methods:

• Forty sound primary molars were subjected to artificial caries induction using acidified gel, pH-cycling, or a microbiological method for 14 days.
• Ten natural dentine caries lesions served as a positive control.
• Knoop microhardness and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were used for analysis.

Main Results:

• Chemical methods produced superficial demineralization; pH-cycling was more effective than acidified gel, creating thicker demineralization with hardness similar to natural lesions.
• The microbiological method resulted in excessive softness but offered morphology more comparable to natural caries.
• Chemically induced lesions showed similar hardness to natural lesions at shallower depths.

Conclusions:

• pH-cycling is suitable for simulating the affected dentine layer post-caries removal.
• The microbiological method is better suited for modeling the infected dentine layer before caries removal.