Focused Question
In patients suffering from peri‐implant diseases, what is the efficacy of air polishing on changing signs of inflammation compared with control treatments (i.e. alternative measures ...for plaque removal with or without adjunctive antiseptic and/ or antibiotic therapy)?
Material & Methods
After electronic database and hand search, 10 full‐text articles were independently screened by two reviewers. Finally, a total of five studies (six publications) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The weighted mean difference (WMD) p; 95% CI in bleeding on probing‐ (BOP) (primary outcome) and probing pocket depth‐ (PD) reductions was estimated using a random effect model.
Results
All studies reported on residual BOP scores after therapy. A narrative data synthesis did not reveal any major improvement of bleeding index/ BOP or disease resolution following air polishing over mechanical debridement at mucositis sites. At peri‐implantitis sites, WMD in BOP reduction between test and control (mechanical debridement with or without local antiseptic therapy, Er:YAG laser) groups was −23.83% p = 0.048; 95% CI (−47.47, −0.20) favouring air polishing over control measures.
Conclusions
While glycine powder air polishing is as effective as the control treatments at mucositis sites, it may improve the efficacy of non‐surgical treatment of peri‐implantitis over the control measures investigated. A complete disease resolution was commonly not obtained.
Objectives
To assess the clinical performance of two‐piece zirconium implants over a period of up to 2 years.
Material & methods
A total of 52 patients with single‐tooth gaps in the posterior ...mandible or maxilla received the same type of a two‐piece zirconium implant system with customized heights of the transmucosal aspect. Fibreglass abutments were cemented and restored with fixed all‐ceramic single crowns using a conventional loading protocol. The cumulative survival rate (primary outcome) was calculated according to the life table method, and Kaplan–Meier survival curves were used to estimate the survival function. Covariates (gender, implant position, implant diameter/length, oral surgeon) were tested using log‐rank tests.
Results
A total of two target implants in 2 patients were lost after a functioning time of 8 months. The cumulative survival rate was 95.8%, and the mean survival time amounted to 32.9 months. Log‐rank tests revealed a significant association for the covariate “oral surgeon” (P = 0.047). The Kaplan–Meier estimates of mechanical/technical and biological complications amounted to 2.1% and 37.5%, respectively. All implant sites revealed a marked increase of the vestibular mucosal level and gain of keratinized tissue at 24 months.
Conclusion
Within the limitations of a prospective cohort study, it was concluded that this two‐piece zirconium implant/fibreglass abutment system can be successfully used in the clinical indication investigated.
Objectives
To assess the horizontal mucosal thickness (hMT) at healthy and diseased implant sites and correlate these measurements with respective probing depths (PD).
Materials and methods
In 60 ...patients, hMT was assessed at the buccal aspect of healthy (n = 36) and diseased (peri‐implant mucositis: n = 26; peri‐implantitis: n = 167) implant sites using a validated ultrasonic A‐scanner (Pirop® Ultrasonic Biometer A‐ Scan, Echo‐Son, Krancowa, Poland) equipped with a specially designed tissue probe. The corresponding PD values were measured at the mid‐buccal aspects.
Results
Median hMT (1.10 mm) at healthy implant sites was significantly lower when compared with diseased sites (1.68 mm; 1.61 mm) (P < 0.001, respectively). These values did not markedly differ by implant location (i.e., upper/lower jaws) or position (i.e., anterior/posterior sites). The regression model failed to reveal a significant linear association between hMT and PD values at healthy and diseased implant sites.
Conclusion
This study has pointed to a significant increase of hMT values at diseased implant sites.
Several decontamination methods for removing biofilm from implant surfaces during surgical peri-implantitis treatment have been reported, including the intraoperative usage of chlorhexidine ...(CHX)-based antiseptics. There is a lack of information on possible adverse effects on bone healing. The study aimed to examine the impact of three CHX-based mouthwashes on osteoblast-like cells (SaOS-2) in vitro. Cells were cultured for three days in 96-well binding plates. Each well was randomly treated for either 30, 60 or 120 s with 0.05% CHX combined with 0.05% cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), 0.1% CHX, 0.2% CHX or sterile saline (NaCl) as control. Cell viability, cytotoxicity and apoptosis were assessed at day 0, 3 and 6. Cell viability resulted in being higher in the control group at all time points. At day 0, the CHX 0.2 group showed significantly higher cytotoxicity values compared to CHX 0.1 (30 s), CHX + CPC (30 s, 60 s and 120 s) and control (60 s and 120 s), while no significant differences were identified between CHX + CPC and both CHX 0.1 and NaCl groups. All test mouthwashes were found to induce apoptosis to a lower extent compared to control. Results indicate that 0.2% CHX presented the highest cytotoxic effect. Therefore, its intraoperative use should be carefully considered.
Objectives
The current COVID‐19 pandemic highlighted the need for a review of guidelines on infection control and prevention to ensure safe delivery of dental care. However, it is not clear to what ...extent the rapidly published European guidelines reflect the current evidence and thus provide homogeneous recommendations.
Material & Methods
Guidelines from all European Union countries, Scotland, Switzerland and United Kingdom were retrieved. Information on triage, mouth rinse, personal protective equipment (PPE) for aerosol free/ generating procedures (non‐AGP/AGP) and treatment of potentially infectious patients were summarized and compared with recommendations from international organizations (WHO, ECDC, CDC).
Results
All included countries (30/30) published COVID‐19 guidelines in 2020. All countries recommended triage and to postpone non‐urgent treatment of potentially infectious patients. Hydrogen peroxide (1%–1.5%) was the most frequently recommended antiseptic mouth rinse to reduce viral load (24/30). PPE for non‐AGP treatments included mainly surgical masks (21/30) or FFP2/FFP3/N95 masks (16/30), whereas FFP2/FFP3 masks (25/30) and face shields (24/30) were recommended for AGP by the vast majority of guidelines. For high‐risk/COVID positive patients, most countries recommended maximum protection and treatment in specialized dental clinics (22/30).
Conclusion
There was general agreement among recommendations for triage, mouth rinse, and PPE during AGP and treatment of potentially infectious patients. In contrast, recommendations on PPE for non‐AGP treatment varied considerably among the European countries possibly due to limited scientific evidence regarding transmission risk during non‐AGP treatments.
The low-affinity nerve growth factor receptor p75NTR is a major neurotrophin receptor involved in manifold and pleiotropic functions in the developing and adult central nervous system (CNS). Although ...known for decades, its entire functions are far from being fully elucidated. Depending on the complex interactions with other receptors and on the cellular context, p75NTR is capable of performing contradictory tasks such as mediating cell death as well as cell survival. In parallel, as a prototype marker for certain differentiation stages of Schwann cells and related CNS aldynoglial cells, p75NTR has recently gained increasing notice as a marker for cells with proposed regenerative potential in CNS diseases, such as demyelinating disease and traumatic CNS injury. Besides its pivotal role as a marker for transplantation candidate cells, recent studies in canine neuroinflammatory CNS conditions also highlight a spontaneous endogenous occurrence of p75NTR-positive glia, which potentially play a role in Schwann cell–mediated CNS remyelination. The aim of the present communication is to review the pleiotropic functions of p75NTR in the CNS with a special emphasis on its role as an immunohistochemical marker in neuropathology. Following a brief illustration of the expression of p75NTR in neurogenesis and in developed neuronal populations, the implications of p75NTR expression in astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia are addressed. A special focus is put on the role of p75NTR as a cell marker for specific differentiation stages of Schwann cells and a regeneration-promoting CNS population, collectively referred to as aldynoglia.
Objective: To conduct a comprehensive and systematic review of the application of existing artificial intelligence for tooth segmentation in CBCT images. Materials and Methods: A literature search of ...the MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Scopus databases to find publications from inception through 21 August 2023, non-English publications excluded. The risk of bias and applicability of each article was assessed using QUADAS-2, and data on segmentation category, research model, sample size and groupings, and evaluation metrics were extracted from the articles. Results: A total of 34 articles were included. Artificial intelligence methods mainly involve deep learning-based techniques, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Fully Convolutional Networks (FCNs), and CNN-based network structures, such as U-Net and V-Net. They utilize multi-stage strategies and combine other mechanisms and algorithms to further improve the semantic or instance segmentation performance of CBCT images, and most of the models have a Dice similarity coefficient greater than 90% and accuracy ranging from 83% to 99%. Conclusions: Artificial intelligence methods have shown excellent performance in tooth segmentation of CBCT images, but still face problems, such as the small size of training data and non-uniformity of evaluation metrics, which still need to be further improved and explored for their application and evaluation in clinical applications.
The matrilins form a family of oligomeric extracellular adaptor proteins that are most strongly expressed in cartilage but also present in many other extracellular matrices. Matrilins bind to ...different types of collagen fibrils, to other noncollagenous proteins and to aggrecan. They thereby support matrix assembly by connecting fibrillar components and mediating interactions between these and the aggrecan gel. The binding avidity of a matrilin can be varied by alternative splicing, proteolytic processing and formation of homo- and heterooligomers. Such changes in matrilin structure may lead to a modulation of extracellular matrix assembly. Some matrilins bind weakly to α1β1 integrin and cell surface proteoglycans, but even though matrilins play a role in mechanotransduction and matrilin-3 activates the expression of osteoarthritis-associated genes the physiological relevance of matrilin-cell interactions is unclear. Matrilin knockout mice do not display pronounced phenotypes, which points to a redundancy within the protein family or with functionally related proteins. In man, dominant mutations in the von Willebrand factor A like domain of matrilin-3 lead to a protein retention in the endoplasmic reticulum that causes multiple epiphyseal dysplasia by initiating a cell stress response. In contrast, a mutation in an EGF domain of matrilin-3 that is associated with hand osteoarthritis and disc degeneration does not interfere with secretion but instead with extracellular assembly of matrix structures. In this review we summarize such information on matrilin structure and function that we believe is important for the understanding of extracellular matrix assembly and for deciphering pathophysiological mechanisms in diseases causing skeletal malformations or cartilage degeneration.
Aim
This study aimed at investigating the efficacy of a 0.05% cetylpyridinium chloride–0.05% chlorhexidine (CPC–CHX) mouthwash in reducing viral load in the saliva as compared with sterile water.
...Materials and Methods
Forty SARS‐CoV‐2 positive patients were asked to dispense 4 mL of saliva. Half the patients rinsed for 60 s with 15 mL CPC–CHX, and the remaining patients rinsed with sterile water (control). Four millilitres of saliva were collected after 15, 30 and 60 min after rinsing. Quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT‐qPCR) and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) specific for SARS‐CoV‐2 nucleocapsid protein were performed. For ELISA, the intact (representing the active virus) to total virus load (I/T) was calculated.
Results
SARS‐CoV‐2 copy numbers/mL from RT‐qPCR tended to decrease in the control group, whereas in the CPC–CHX group, an increase was observed after T30. However, mixed linear model analysis revealed no statistical differences between groups (p = .124), time points (p = .616) and vaccinated or non‐vaccinated patients (p = .953). Similarly, no impact of group (p = .880), time points (p = .306) and vaccination (p = .711) was observed for I/T ratio values.
Conclusions
Within the limitation of this study, there was no evidence that the intervention reduced salivary SARS‐CoV‐2 viral load during the course of 60 min. Therefore, commonly used pre‐procedural rinsing might not be clinically relevant.
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