In comparison with the classical treatment, it could be said that the retention and quality of filling materials is the same or very similar.

The results of this in vivo experiment on human teeth confirm safety of Er:YAG laser ablation of enamel and dentin under the conditions described.

No abstract

Clinical tests of the caries treatment with a Er:YAG laser system have been very promising. The problem of the Er:YAG laser drilling machine is the speed of preparation. It is not possible to increase the laser energy and repetition rate because this process is directly connected with temperature elevation. Therefore attention has been paid to define the differences between the classical and the laser drilling effect with a safe but effective laser energy and repetition rate. For the experiment, an Er:YAG laser drilling machine with an articulated arm was designed. Thirty samples of extracted human teeth were cut by both this system and classical drilling machine. The circumference, area and structure of surface sections were observed and analyzed.From the comparison of the measured time of preparation significant differences followed from the time of preparation (155 sec is needed for preparation by laser radiation and 28.4 sec for a classical drilling machine). The time of preparation related to 1 mm2 of the cut surface was 5.42sec for the Er:YAG the laser machine and 0.66 sec for the classical method. From this comparison it follows that the laser system is 8 times slower than the classical preparation technique. In both cases the roughness of the surface analyzed by SCAN was found similar. Also, there were no differences between the distribution of the elements, especially calcium and phosphorus.

No abstract