Susceptibility of Human Deciduous Enamel to Erosive Wear after Exposure to Commonly Prescribed Oral Pediatric Liquid Medicaments: An AFM Based in vitro Analysis

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this in vitro analysis was to determine the effects of various commonly prescribed pediatric oral liquid medicaments on deciduous teeth. Material and methods: Thirty extracted human deciduous incisors were cleaned and then sectioned longitudinally resulting in 60 samples from a total of 30 tooth samples. After polishing all samples were randomly divided into three groups. Group 1: untreated group, Group 2: Immersion of samples in Paracetamol (sugar-free), Group 3: Immersion of samples in Chlorpheniramine. All the tooth samples in Group 2 and 3 were exposed to twenty cycles of 15 seconds immersion at 6 hours’ interval. The root mean square roughness (Rrms) was calculated for surface roughness assessment from the AFM images. Anova and Tuckey’s post hoc test were used to analyze the differences in mean roughness values between the three groups. Results: One way Anova showed a statistically significant differences (p-value of 0.00) between the mean roughness values of three groups. Furthermore, Tuckey post hoc test revealed a statistically significant difference between the surface roughness values of Group 2 and Group 3 (0.158±0.012) and between Group 1 and Group 2 (0.085±0.012), indicating that mean surface roughness values increased significantly after frequent exposures to pediatric oral liquids. Conclusion: The tested pediatric oral liquids could significantly increases the surface roughness values of all treated tooth surfaces giving encorughment to the erosive potential of these oral liquid medicaments towards more enamel loss.