Differential Efficacy of Two Dental Implant Decontamination Techniques in Reducing Microbial Biofilm and Re-Growth onto Titanium Disks In Vitro

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 9; no. 15; p. 3191
• Main Authors: Meto, Aida, Conserva, Enrico, Liccardi, Francesco, Colombari, Bruna, Consolo, Ugo, Blasi, Elisabetta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.08.2019
• Subjects: BIC-40; Biofilms; Bioluminescence; BLI-P. aeruginosa; Brush; decontamination systems; Dental implants; Dentistry; Laboratories; Medicine; Morphology; Surgery; Systematic review; Titanium alloys; titanium disks; Virology; United States > US; Italy
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app9153191

Dental implants are crucial therapeutic devices for successful substitution of missing teeth. Failure cases are mainly pathogen-associated events, allowing clinical progression toward peri-mucositis or peri-implantitis. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of two mechanical decontamination systems, Nickel-Titanium brush (Brush) and Air-Polishing system with 40 µm bicarbonate powder (BIC-40), by means of a novel bioluminescence-based model that measures microbial load in real time. Briefly, 30 disks were contaminated using the bioluminescent Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain (BLI-P. aeruginosa), treated with Brush (30 s rounds, for 90 s) or BIC-40 (30 s, at 5 mm distance) procedure, and then assessed for microbial load, particularly, biofilm removal and re-growth. Our results showed that Brush and BIC-40 treatment reduced microbial load of about 1 and more than 3 logs, respectively. Furthermore, microbial re-growth onto Brush-treated disks rapidly occurred, while BIC-40-treated disks were slowly recolonized, reaching levels of microbial load consistently below those observed with the controls. In conclusion, we provide evidence on the good performance of BIC-40 as titanium device-decontamination system, the clinical implication for such findings will be discussed.