Knowledge, Dental Anxiety, and Patient Expectations During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract Objective: To assess the knowledge, dental anxiety, and expectations regarding dental services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods: The respondents were Indonesian citizens above 18 years old. An online Google survey was administered using a structured questionnaire with a snowball sampling technique. Survey items comprised knowledge related to COVID-19, dental anxiety assessed using the modified DAS (Dental Anxiety Scale) and expectations regarding dental services using four dimensions of dental service quality. All questionnaires were tested for reliability and indicated acceptable and good agreement. The data were analyzed descriptively. Results: A total of 553 responses were analysed. Most respondents were female (72.9%), 76.7% knew of recommendations to postpone dentist visits and 86.8% knew methods of preventing COVID-19 transmission. More than 70% of respondents knew the precaution procedures in the dental office during COVID-19, and only 27.9% had moderate-severe anxiety. Most respondents' expectations regarding dental services during the pandemic era were related to the quality domain of reliability and responsiveness. Conclusion: Respondents knew about COVID-19 transmission and prevention, emergency conditions warranting a visit to the dentist and the procedures used at the dental office. Most respondents stated that they were not anxious about visiting a dentist during the pandemic. The respondents expect the dentist to provide sufficient information to improve oral health and treatment plan.

Quality of Tooth-Whitening Videos Available on YouTube

ABSTRACT Objective: To compare how the quality of YouTube videos on tooth whitening uploaded by healthcare professionals and laypersons. Material and Methods: The video that was uploaded in a year was collected on YouTube using the keywords tooth whitening and dental bleaching. The exclusion criteria were duplicate videos, advertisements, no sound, too short duration, and lectures. The variables analyzed were likes/dislikes, viewers, interaction index, viewing rate, usefulness, global quality scale (GQS), and comprehensiveness score. Two observers reviewed the videos independently. Data were analyzed descriptively and analytically. Results: A total of 106 videos were selected, and most were uploaded by laypersons (70.8%). The observer reliability test showed excellent agreement with the intraclass correlation coefficient score minimum of 0.876. There were significant differences in dislikes (p=0.003), views (p=0.016), interaction index (p=0.010), usefulness (p=0.030), GQS (p<0.0001), and comprehensiveness (p=0.014) between healthcare professionals and laypersons. Videos made by laypersons had higher numbers of dislikes and viewing rates, whereas healthcare professionals were higher in usefulness, GQS, and comprehensiveness. Conclusion: Videos uploaded by laypersons provide low-accurate information despite being popular among viewers. Viewers need to be selective in seeking information from YouTube as a resource for oral healthcare decision-related tooth whitening.

Novel aminoalkylated chalcone: Synthesis, biological evaluation, and docking simulation as potent antimalarial agents

Three chalcone derivatives with amine groups (4a–c) were synthesized and evaluated for their antimalarial activity.Three aminoalkylated chalcone derivatives (4a–c) have been prepared through Claisen–Schmidt condensation reactionfrom vanillin and chloroacetophenone, followed by the Mannich reaction to add amine group. The structure of thecompounds was confirmed by the spectrophotometric analysis using mass spectrometers (MS) and proton and carbonnuclear magnetic resonance (1H- and 13C-NMR) spectroscopy. Antimalarial activity of 4a–c was evaluated againstPlasmodium falciparum (3D7) strain, and the molecular docking of 4b was performed to understand the interactionagainst Pf DHFR-TS protein (1J3I.pdb). The prepared aminoalkylated chalcone (4a–c) was obtained in a yield of 80%,75%, and 70%. The addition of morpholine (4a), piperidine (4b), and diethylamine (4c) as amine groups significantlycould improve the antimalarial activity with IC50 of 0.62, 0.54, and 1.12 µM, respectively (strong activity), comparedwith the chalcone without amine group (3) with IC50 of 25.84 µM (moderate activity). The molecular docking ofcompound 4b exhibited strong hydrogen bond interaction with ILE112, ILE64, SER111, SER108, ASP54, TYR170,and PRO113 residues with CDOCKER interaction energy of −48.84 kcal/mol. Thus, aminoalkylated chalcone couldbe proposed for further studies and developed into antimalarial drug candidates

East java extract propolis as potential intracanal medicament in experimentally induced chronic apical periodontitis

Introduction: A persistent infection after cleaning and shaping root canal is the main etiology of root canal treatment failure. Enterococcus faecalis has been considered as one of the most resistant species in root canal treatment. E. faecalis can stimulate receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappa B ligand (RANKL) which can increase nuclear factor of activated T-cell (NFATc1) in chronic apical periodontitis. East Java propolis has antibacterial effects and is biocompatible with in vitro effects. Aim: This study is aimed to analyze the East Java propolis extract as potential intracanal medicament in chronic apical periodontitis caused by E. faecalis bacterial infection. Materials and Methods: This study used 30 Wistar rats divided into three groups. In Group I, the first upper right molar tooth as healthy tooth was used for negative control group. In Group II, the first upper right molar tooth was used for a prepared root canal, and 10 ml brain heart infusion broth containing E. faecalis ATCC29212 106 CFU was injected into the canal and restored with glass-ionomer cement (GIC) for the experimentally induced chronic apical periodontitis group. In Group III, after root canal preparation, E. faecalis ATCC 29212 106 CFU was injected, and then, 10 μl propolis applied and tooth restored with GIC. It took 21 days for the periapical lesions to develop after pulp infection. The rats were then sacrificed to conduct immunohistochemical examinations in order to measure the expressions of RANKL and NFATc1. Results: The average of RANKL and NFATc1 expression in Group III was significantly lower than those in the experimentally induced chronic apical periodontitis group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: It can be concluded that East Java propolis extract is a potential intracanal medicament through the study of experimentally induced chronic apical periodontitis caused by E. faecalis infection in Wistar rats.

Proximate composition, nutritional values and phytochemical screening of Piper retrofractum vahl.fruits

Objective:To investigate the proximate and mineral composition of the Piper retrofractum (P.retrofractum) vahl.Fruit and to evaluate its total alkaloids,phenol and flavonoid.Methods:The proximate composition of P.retrofractum fruit was ananlyzed using standard protocols according to Indonesian Standard and Association of Official Analytical Chemist.Meanwhile,mineral composition of the fruit was analyzed using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry.Phytochemical screening and quantification were performed using standard protocols according to Harborn and spectrophotometric methods.Results:The results showed that P.retrofractum fruit contained carbohydrate (63.4％),crude protein (11.4％),total ash (4.29％),dietary fiber (28.8％) and total fat (2.97％).The fruit also contained calcium,copper,iron,magnesium,phosphor,potassium,sodium and zinc in different concentrations.Additionally,quinone,sterol,glycosides and alkaloid were detected in both n-hexane and ethyl acetate extracts.Moreover,tannin was presented also in ethylacetate and methanol extracts.Meanwhile,methanol extract contained sterol,glycosides,flavones,tannin and alkaloid.The results also revealed that methanol extract of the fruit contained highest phenol compared to other extract.Finally,small quantity of flavonoid (0.060 0％±0.000 2％) was observed.Conclusions:The overall results show that P.retrofractum contains potential nutritional and phytochemicals values,which support their function for pharmaceutical purposes.

Chalcone analogue as potent anti-malarial compounds against Plasmodium falciparum: Synthesis, biological evaluation, and docking simulation study

Objective To investigate in vitro antimalarial activity of chalcone derivative compounds against Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 (Pf3D7) strain and in silico antimalarial activity. Methods Synthesis of the chalcone derivatives was conducted via Claisen-Schmidt method using NaOH 60% base as catalyst. An in vitro antimalarial activity assay was carried out according to the Rieckmann method against the chloroquine-sensitive Pf3D7 strain. Molecular docking studies of the prepared compounds were performed using Discovery Studio 3.1 (Accelrys, Inc., San Diego, USA) software to dihydrofolate reductases–thymidylate synthase (PfDHFR-TS) protein with Protein Data Bank ID of 1J3I.pdb (sensitive-protein) and ID: 4DP3.pdb (resistance-protein). Results This work has successfully synthesized seven chalcone derivatives with a great antimalarial activity. It has been revealed that allyloxy, hydroxy and alkoxy functional groups could increase the antimalarial activity of the chalcone derivatives. The best antimalarial activity of the prepared compounds was possessed by 3b with an IC

A Rare Case of Suspected Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Pruriginosa

Inherited epidermolysis bullosa (EB) encompasses over 30 phenotypes or genotypes. A characteristic feature of all types of EB is the presence of recurrent blistering or erosions, the result of even minor traction to this tissues. There are four major types of inherited EB: EB simplex (EBS), junctional EB (JEB), dystrophic EB (DEB), and Kindler syndrome. These differ not only phenotypically and genotypically but more importantly by the site of ultrastructural disruption or cleavage. Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB) is a rare mechanobullous genodermatosis inherited either with autosomal dominant or recessive pattern and characterized by fragility, blistering and scarring of the skin and mucous membranes. Blistering is due to abnormalities in anchoring fibrils (AF), microstructures mainly composed of type VII collagen (COLLVII), which contributes to the maintaining of dermal-epidermal adhesion. Most cases are sporadic, but a few show autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive pattern of inheritance. Microscopic studies of EB pruriginosa show typical findings of dystrophic EB, and it has been postulated that itching lesions of EB pruriginosa could represent an abnormal dermal reactivity of some subjects to their inherited bullous disorder. The study of the molecular basis of dominant dystrophic EB (classical) and EB pruriginosa shows that both diseases are caused by a missense glycine substitution mutation by different amino acids in the same codon of COL 7A (G2028R and G2028A)