Vibrational and sonochemical characterization of ultrasonic endodontic activating devices for translation to clinical efficacy

Publication date: April 2020Source: Materials Science and Engineering: C, Volume 109Author(s): Erfan Dashtimoghadam, Alexander Johnson, Farahnaz Fahimipour, Mohamadali Malakoutian, Jessica Vargas, Jose Gonzalez, Mohamed Ibrahim, John Baeten, Lobat TayebiAbstractPassive activation of endodontic irrigants provides improved canal disinfection, smear layer removal, and better subsequent sealing. Although evidence suggests that passive activating endodontic devices increase the effectiveness of irrigation, no study exists to quantitatively compare and validate vibrational characteristics and cavitation produced by different ultrasonic endodontic devices. The current study aims to compare the efficiency of various commercially available ultrasonic endodontic activating devices (i.e., EndoUltra™, EndoChuck, Irrisafe™, and PiezoFlow®). The passive endodontic activating devices were characterized in terms of tip displacement and cavitation performance using scanning laser vibrometry (SLV) and sonochemical analysis, respectively. The obtained results showed that activator tip displacements and speed correlate to established cavitation thresholds. The EndoUltra™ tip speed was measured to be 14.5 and 28.1 m/s at 45 and 91 kHz, respectively, which is greater than the threshold. The EndoUltra™ was found to be the only device that exceeds the cavitation thresholds (i.e. tip speed and displacement), as evident from laser vibrometry analysis, and subsequently yielded measurable cav...
Source: Materials Science and Engineering: C - Category: Materials Science Source Type: research