Abstract
Background: With the implementation of minimally invasive selective caries removal protocols to treat cavitated, deep carious dentine lesions, there is a need to investigate specific biochemical moiety distributions to help characterise and distinguish between infected (contaminated) and affected (demineralised) zones within the dentine lesion. The present in vitro investigation aimed to compare the distribution of ester functional groups (1740 cm−1) within carious dentine tissue (infected and affected dentine). The null hypothesis stipulated that there are no differences in ester function intensity/distribution within carious dentine lesions. Materials and Methods: From a total of five extracted human molar teeth with carious dentine lesions, 246 points from 10 sections of carious dentine were examined using high-resolution Raman spectroscopy and characterised into infected, affected and sound dentine. The peak intensity of the characteristic vibration mode of the ester function was calculated from sample scans. Results: Analyses indicated a statistically significant difference in the spectroscopic vibration bands of esters between the infected and affected dentine zones. Conclusion: The ester functional group is higher in intensity in the caries-infected dentine zone compared to the affected tissue. This finding could be used to develop an objective indicator for the selective operative management of carious dentine.
Highlights
Characterising and discriminating between denatured, necrotic, bacterially contaminated and demineralised tissue in a cavitated carious lesion is of clinical relevance when performing minimally invasive operative interventions [1,2]
The results showed a significant difference in the ester functional group intensities between the three histological dentine zones (Table 1, Figure 1)
The descriptive analysis showed that the mean intensity of ester functional groups in the caries-infected dentine was almost three times higher than that in the caries-affected dentine
Summary
Characterising and discriminating between denatured, necrotic, bacterially contaminated and demineralised tissue in a cavitated carious lesion is of clinical relevance when performing minimally invasive operative interventions [1,2]. Determining any difference in intensity, and distribution, of the ester functional groups between infected and affected zones of carious dentine could help develop clinical indicators to aid practitioners with selective, minimally invasive operative carious dentine removal technologies and develop research towards developing novel chemical adhesion mechanisms for biointeractive restorative materials and tissue repair mechanisms. This in vitro study aimed to compare the distribution of ester functional groups within carious dentine tissue (infected and affected dentine). Lucifer yellow (LY) was used to subjectively visualise any colour changes in the carious dentine zones, as it has the chemical ability to react with such ester functional groups, acting as a biochemical label [14]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
