Drug Releasing Dental Cements: An In Vitro Study

Abstract

Dental cements are used in dentistry for filling carious teeth. However recurrent caries occur due to limitations in cleaning carious teeth. The suitability of dental cements in releasing drug locally was studied. In addition, weight variation tests, drug content uniformity tests of the drug releasing units, the bioactivity of released drug as well as the effect of cement types, drug release media and size of drug release units on drug release were studied. The findings of the study support the use of dental cements for the delivery of antibacterial drug locally and in a controlled fashion for the prevention of recurrent caries.