A comparative profilometric in vitro study of the susceptibility of polished and natural human enamel and dentine surfaces to erosive demineralization

This study sought to compare the depths of erosive lesions in samples from different tooth sides as well as from enamel, dentine and root surfaces, and to examine the effect of preparation and polishing of specimens on erosive demineralization. From 30 impacted human third molars, two enamel samples from the mesial, distal, buccal and oral aspects, and similar samples from the radicular dentine, were prepared. One of each pair of samples was polished whereas the other was left untreated. Four samples were also prepared from the coronal dentine. For erosive demineralization, all samples were immersed in 0.05 M citric acid for 3 h and the erosion depth was calculated profilometrically. In general, natural surfaces showed significantly smaller erosion depths than polished surfaces (p≤0.001) and enamel samples showed greater depths than coronal dentine (not significant) and root dentine (p≤0.001). The erosion depths of the four tooth sides correlated significantly for polished enamel and coronal dentine samples but not for natural enamel specimens. There was no correlation between erosion depths for enamel and coronal dentine, and only a weak correlation between enamel and root dentine.