Efficacy of antiseptics for rubber dam sterilization prior to endodontic treatment.

PURPOSE: This study investigated the efficacy of various antiseptics for disinfection of rubber dams used during endodontic treatment, the duration of disinfection effectiveness, and the disinfection protocol employed by dental schools in Thailand. METHODS: The efficacy of 10% povidone-iodine, 1.5% tincture iodine and 70% ethyl alcohol in eliminating Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) and Candida albicans (C. albicans) on the rubber dam was investigated. Time duration of disinfection was evaluated at 0, 30, 60, and 120 min. The two-step disinfection method adopted at Thai dental school was examined. Independent t-test or Kruskal-Wallis followed by a Dunnett's test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Among the three antiseptics, 10% povidone and 1.5% tincture iodine eradicated the microorganisms completely, whereas 70% ethyl alcohol did not achieve a statistically significant decrease. The duration of sterilization effectiveness was 120 min for 10% povidone-iodine, but bacteria were eliminated only at 0 min by 1.5% tincture iodine. The results also indicated that the two-step protocol scarcely eliminated the microorganisms. CONCLUSION: The best antiseptic for rubber dam disinfection is 10% povidone-iodine, which remains effective for 120 min. The two-step protocol typically practiced in Thai dental schools needs to be updated. The use of 10% povidone-iodine alone is adequate for complete eradication of E. faecalis and C. albicans.

Correction: Laorpipat et al. Attitude of Thai Dental Practitioners towards the Use of Botulinum Toxin in Dentistry. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 1878.

There was an error in the original publication [...].

Investigation of the best effective fold of data augmentation for training deep learning models for recognition of contiguity between mandibular third molar and inferior alveolar canal on panoramic radiographs.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to train deep learning models for recognition of contiguity between the mandibular third molar (M3M) and inferior alveolar canal using panoramic radiographs and to investigate the best effective fold of data augmentation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The total of 1800 M3M cropped images were classified evenly into contact and no-contact. The contact group was confirmed with CBCT images. The models were trained from three pretrained models: AlexNet, VGG-16, and GoogLeNet. Each pretrained model was trained with the original cropped panoramic radiographs. Then the training images were increased fivefold, tenfold, 15-fold, and 20-fold using data augmentation to train additional models. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the 15 models were evaluated. RESULTS: All models recognized contiguity with AUC from 0.951 to 0.996. Ten-fold augmentation showed the highest AUC in all pretrained models; however, no significant difference with other folds were found. VGG-16 showed the best performance among pretrained models trained at the same fold of augmentation. Data augmentation provided statistically significant improvement in performance of AlexNet and GoogLeNet models, while VGG-16 remained unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our images, all models performed efficiently with high AUC, particularly VGG-16. Ten-fold augmentation showed the highest AUC by all pretrained models. VGG-16 showed promising potential when training with only original images. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Ten-fold augmentation may help improve deep learning models' performances. The variety of original data and the accuracy of labels are essential to train a high-performance model.

Attitude of Thai Dental Practitioners towards the Use of Botulinum Toxin in Dentistry.

This study aims to investigate the attitude of Thai dentists towards the use of botulinum toxin (BTX) in dentistry and the associated factors. An online survey was conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire consisting of four parts: demographic data, background knowledge, attitude, and an open-ended question for further suggestions related to BTX usage in dental patients. Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze factors that affect the decision to use BTX in dentistry, and a content analysis approach was used to describe open-ended suggestion data. We received 444 responses from currently practicing dentists throughout Thailand. Roughly 80% of the participants agreed to the use of BTX in their patients. Most participants were aware that BTX could be used for facial esthetic repairs and bruxism treatment but unaware of other therapeutic benefits. Despite impressively positive attitudes towards BTX use, only 5.9% of the participants had the experience of using BTX in their dental patients. The limit on BTX use is mainly due to the lack of knowledge of related laws and educational resources. In summary, official training courses should be established to promote the safe and legal use of BTX in dentistry in Thailand.

Oral Bacterial Microbiomes in Association with Potential Prediabetes Using Different Criteria of Diagnosis.

This study aimed to find a potential biomarker that can be used to diagnose prediabetic condition by comparing the salivary bacterial microbiomes between Thai dental patients with normoglycemia (NG) and those with potential prediabetes (PPG) conditions. Thirty-three subjects were randomly recruited. Demographic data were collected along with oral examination and unstimulated salivary collections. The salivary bacterial microbiomes were identified by high-throughput sequencing on the V3-V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. Microbiomes in this study were composed of 12 phyla, 19 classes, 29 orders, 56 families, 81 genera, and 184 species. To check the validity of the selection criterion for prediabetes, we adopted two separate criteria to divide samples into PPG and NG groups using glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) or fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels. Using the HbA1c level resulted in the significant reduction of Alloprevotella, Neisseria, Rothia, and Streptococcus abundances in PPG compared with those in NG (p-value < 0.05). On the other hand, the abundance of Absconditabacteriales was significantly reduced whereas Leptotrichia, Stomatobaculum, and Ruminococcaceae increased in the PPG group when the samples were classified by the FPG level (p-value < 0.05). It is implied that the group classifying criterion should be carefully concerned when investigating relative abundances between groups. However, regardless of the criteria, Rothia is significantly dominant in the NG groups, suggesting that Rothia might be a potential prediabetic biomarker. Due to the small sample size of this study, further investigation with a larger sample size is necessary to ensure that Rothia can be a potential biomarker for prediabetes in Thai people.

Attitude of Physicians towards Periodontal Disease and Diabetes Mellitus Screening in Dental Clinics in Thailand.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the top causes of death in many places of the world. Diagnosing DM in the early stage is necessary to avoid severe cases and death. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the knowledge of association between DM and periodontal disease (PD) among Thai physicians and assess their attitudes towards DM screening in dental clinics in Thailand. METHODS: Online survey of currently practicing physicians in Thailand was conducted on voluntary basis using the newly developed questionnaire. RESULT: We received 403 responses that are statistically sufficient to represent the entire population of currently practicing physicians in Thailand. A total of 97.3% of all responses indicate that Thai physicians have knowledge about the association between DM and PD. More than 90% know that DM has an effect on PD; however, 70% know about the effect of untreated PD in DM patients. Most of physicians think that DM screening in dental clinics is important (79.1%) and are ready to accept referred cases for definite DM diagnosis from a dentist (84.1%). The concerned issues among the participants were the accuracy of the test results in DM screening (73%) and ability of a dentist to perform the screening (71.5%). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of participating physicians have adequate knowledge about the bidirectional relationship between DM and PD. They have a positive attitude towards DM screening in dental setting. The collaboration between physicians and dental professionals should be established to reduce the number of undiagnosed DM patients and enhance the medical care of DM patients.