Background: Dental caries are caused by localized dissolution and destruction of the calcified tissues. Many papers have evaluated the effectiveness of allopathic or herbal interventions on enamel remineralization. However, no paper has evaluated the combined effectiveness. This paper compares the remineralizing effect of hydroxyapatite-incorporated herbal dentifrice and conventional fluoridated dentifrice on artificial enamel lesion.
Materials and methods: An in-vitro study was carried out on 14 extracted sound human maxillary premolars. Nano-hydroxyapatite crystals were formulated by a wet chemical precipitation method and characterization was done using an X-ray diffractometer. Stems of miswak were collected, cut into small pieces, shade dried, and coarsely powdered. A dentifrice formulation was then prepared using them. The prepared tooth samples were processed through a pH cycling for 7 days. The depth of the lesion was assessed using a confocal microscope. Comparison of the lesion depth between the groups was done using the independent t-test
Result: A significant reduction in the depth of the lesion was observed in both groups. Initially, before treatment, the depth of the lesion was 763.13+66.18 and 763.14±66.18 in group I and group II respectively. The depth of the lesion in group I reduced to 240.33 ± 23.47 after treatment with the respective dentifrice. The reduction in the depth of the lesion was observed in group II (272.55+29.38) also. However, this reduction was comparatively higher in group I, which was found to be statistically significant (p=0.043).
Conclusion: Herbal dentifrice incorporated with hydroxyapatite had higher remineralizing potential compared to a fluoride dentifrice.
Keywords: Demineralization, remineralization, enamel caries, fluoride, toothpaste
