Use of Nicotine Mouth Sprays for Tobacco Cessation: A Review.

Smoking is a taboo, and a smoker fails in quitting despite repeated attempts as tobacco in all forms contain a highly addictive chemical nicotine making it difficult for habituated tobacco users to quit. Its addictive potential is considered to be even more than cocaine or heroin. It is due to the dependency caused by the nicotine that smokers become dependent and cause severe withdrawal symptoms. Hence, nicotine replacement therapy came into play to aid in tobacco cessation. There are currently various nicotine replacement therapies, which are available currently for tobacco abstinence. In this article, we shall discuss nicotine nasal spray, mouth spray, and the nicotine inhaler.

Oral Health Promotion among Rural School Children through Teachers: An Interventional Study.

Background: The lack of national oral health policy and organized school dental health programs in the country call for affordable, accessible, and sustainable strategies. Objectives: The objective was to compare the oral hygiene, plaque, gingival, and dental caries status among rural children receiving dental health education by qualifi ed dentists and school teachers with and without supply of oral hygiene aids. Materials and Methods: This interventional study was conducted among 15-year-old children selected randomly from four schools in Nalgonda district between September 2009 and February 2010. Schools were divided into four different intervention groups. The intervention groups varied in the form of intervention provider and frequency of intervention one of which being the control group. The oral hygiene, plaque, gingival, and dental caries status was assessed at baseline and 6 months following the intervention. SPSS 16 was used for analysis. Results: The preintervention and postintervention comparison within each group revealed a substantial reduction in mean oral hygiene index-simplifi ed (OHI-S), plaque index (PI), and gingival index (GI) at postintervention compared to baseline in group 4 (1.26, 0.87, and 0.74, respectively) followed by group 3 (0.14, 0.37, and 0.12, respectively). The OHI-S, PI, and GI scores increased in group 1 (0.66, 0.37, and 0.34, respectively) and group 2 (0.25, 0.19, and 0.14, respectively). Mean decayed, missing fi lled surfaces score between the groups was not statistically signifi cant at baseline and postintervention. Conclusion: The dramatic reductions in the OHI-S, PI, and GI scores in the group supplied with oral hygiene aids call for supplying low cost fl uoridated toothpastes along with toothbrushes through the school systems in rural areas.

The effect of air abrasion on the retention of metallic brackets bonded to fluorosed enamel surface.

Background: Bonding brackets to fluorosed enamel remains a clinical challenge and bracket failure at the compromised enamel interface is common. Objective: To check the effect of air abrasion on the retention of metallic brackets bonded to fluorosed enamel surface. Materials and Methods: Sixty freshly extracted human premolar teeth having moderate to severe dental fluorosis as per Dean's criteria were collected and divided into three groups of 20 each. The groups were treated as follows: In group I, acid etching was followed by bonding with Transbond XT® ; in group II, sandblasting and acid etching was followed by bonding with Transbond XT® ; and in group III, sandblasting and acid etching was followed by bonding with Enlight LC® . An Instron™ universal testing machine was used for determining the debonding force, and from this the shear bond strength was computed. The sample with highest shear bond strength from each group was selected for the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) study. The prepared specimens were examined under a JSM-840A scanning electron microscope (JEOL Ltd, Tokyo, Japan) operated at 20 kV. Photographs were taken at progressively higher magnifications of ×50, ×100, ×500, and ×1000 to view the enamel surface and the adhesive remaining on the enamel surface after debonding. The shear bond strengths of the groups were compared using the one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) and Tukey post hoc test. The distribution of adhesive remnant index (ARI) score was compared using the Chi-square test. Results: The mean shear bond strength in group I was 10.36 MPa, with a standard deviation of 0.225. The corresponding values in group II and group III were 11.41±0.237 MPa and 11.39±0.201 Mpa, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference between the three groups in the mean shear bond strength values. Conclusion: Sandblasting followed by acid etching provides significantly higher bond strength values compared to acid etching alone, irrespective of the bonding material employed.