Prevention of orthodontic enamel demineralization with Duraphat

The clinical data was collected from 26 orthodontics patients at our hospital. All of them received straight wire appliance. The observed teeth were randomly classified into experiment and comparison groups. After the mounting of orthodontic bracket, Duraphat was smeared on the surface of maxillary central incisor, maxillary lateral incisor, maxillary canine, maxillary first premolar and maxillary first premolar in the experiment group while no Duraphat was applied in the comparison group. After wearing orthodontic appliance for 1, 3, 6 and 9 months, enamel demineralization of each tooth was observed. And the enamel decalcification index (EDI) of different areas of each tooth at different timepoints was recorded. More demineralization areas existed in the comparison group than the experiment group (P<0.01). In addition, no Ⅲ degree enamel demineralization was observed in the experiment group after Duraphat applying for 1 month. EDI were 0.20, 0.24, 0.21 and 0.16 in the experiment group after Duraphat applying for 1, 3, 6 and 9 months versus 0.37, 0.44, 0.44 and 0.34 in the comparison group during the same time periods. Therefore EDI and demineralization areas were significantly smaller in the experiment group than those in the comparison group (P<0.01). Key words: Orthodontics; Sodium fluoride