Aachen PK 2003 – scientific programme

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P: Plasmaphysik

P 10: Poster II

P 10.42: Poster

Tuesday, March 18, 2003, 17:30–19:15, Foyer

Investigation of possibilities for plasma treatment of dental caries — •Raymond Sladek, Eva Stoffels, and Rick Walraven — Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Much effort is invested in development of tissue-saving methods in dentistry. Cleaning and sterilisation of infected tissue in a dental cavity or in a root channel can be accomplished using laser techniques, but in addition to being to expensive, lasers cannot perform superficial treatment of an irregular surface. Recently, a non-thermal atmospheric plasma has been developed and its interactions with living objects have been studied. Plasma is an efficient source of various radicals, capable of bacterial decontamination, while it operates at room temperature and does not cause bulk destruction of the tissue. Plasma treatment is potentially a novel tissue-saving technique, allowing to clean irregular structures and narrow channels within the diseased tooth. Tooth samples have been exposed to the plasma and it has been verified that neither temperature increase in the tissue nor damage to the mineralised matrix take place. We investigate the efficiency of plasma-aided destruction of bacteria present in dental plaque using standard bacterial viability kits.