Cold plasma enamel surface treatment to increase fluoride varnish uptake

Abstract

Enamel strengthening to prevent the first stage of caries has been an essential issue in oral health recently. Among the available methods to increase enamel strength, fluoride varnish treatment has relatively better results in preventing tooth decay. Cold plasma capabilities in sterilizing the environment, surface modification, and improving adhesion are well known. Accordingly, this study aims to increase the enamel layer's adhesion hoping that the intensity and time of enamel interaction with FV and the absorption of fluoride ions will increase. Accordingly, we randomly divided twenty bovine teeth into two groups A (consisting of four teeth) and B (composed of four subgroups, each containing four teeth). Samples of group A and one specimen of each subset B investigate the effect of using Helium-DBD (He-DBDJ), Argon (ArJ), and Air-DBD jet on the enamel surface. Other B specimens are devoted to the study of the release of FV fluoride ions from processed enamel. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) images show that although ArJ and Air-DBD have significantly damaged the enamel's hexagonal structures, they are only changed from convex to concave in the He-DBDJ case. For this reason, enamel effectively enhances the capacity to accept more FV. The energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) indicates an increase in calcium ratio to phosphorus and the amount of fluoride and sodium absorption in the enamel layer in processing with He-DBDJ plasma. The latter helps restore the damaged parts of the enamel. Analysis of fluoride released from the FV did not show a significant change owing to plasma processing. The combination of Cold plasma and varnish fluoride on treatment enamel could be unique ability to improve reinforcement of tooth enamel against of tooth decay.