IN VITRO EVALUATION OF SURFACE CLEANING METHODS IN TWO DIFFERENT IMPLANT DEFECT ANGULATIONS: A PILOT STUDY

The aim of this study is to investigate the cleaning potential of an air abrasive device with trehalose powder on implant surfaces in comparison to Er:YAG laser application in an vitro model of two different defect angulations.
Two standardized study models representing two different defect morphologies with opening angulations of 30°and 60°, were custom-made from clear epoxy resin (Epoart, Polisan, Kocaeli, Turkey) . The defect’s height in each model was 6 mm (down to the 3rd thread) and the defect’s width corresponded to the implants’ diameter (3.75 mm) simulating a semi-circumferential peri-implant defect.
After instrumentations, implants were removed carefully from the models. Loosened ink particles were cleaned by gentle water and air spray. Digital color photos were taken in standardized conditions by a digital camera (dark chamber, ISO 125, aperture f/7.1, shutter speed 1/60 s, distance 31.4 cm with a Nikon D5300, Tokyo, Japan), positioned vertically to the implant axis. Twin flash R1C1 wireless close-up Speedlight system (Tokyo, Japan) was used with power settings of ½ from one side. Evaluations on the surface ink remnants were performed with an image processing software (Image J 1.46 r, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA).
Image J system was used to scan the areas where the ink remnants were present. The surfaces areas of these surfaces were calculated. The data was collected in excell files where each group can be seen separately. These excel files are attached for the data to be available to the public.