AIRFLOW® ON EXPOSED DENTINE
Remove Biofilm on Exposed Dentine

CLINICAL EVIDENCE
Edition 2022

CLINICAL BENEFITSAIRFLOW® causes minimal damage to the dentine orcementum1,2 and is least abrasive compared toultrasonics.3
AIRFLOW® with glycine powder on dentine shows
significantly less surface roughness than sodium
bicarbonate,4 indicating it does not increase the initialadhesion of S. mutans bacteria.5
Glycine powder causes a significantly lower increase inroot surface roughness than sodium bicarbonate.6

94% coronal cementum remains
after subgingival AIRFLOW®.7Glycine powder is a viable treatment
option for root surfaces incomparison to sodium bicarbonate
which produces greater volume loss
and defect depth of root surface
cementum.4,8
Efficient biofilm removal on exposed root surfaces using
AIRFLOW®.9GUIDED BIOFILM THERAPY (GBT) PROTOCOLAIRFLOW® CLASSIC Powder is not to be recommended
on exposed root surfaces.6,10
AIRFLOW® PERIO or PLUS Powder is a viable treatment
option on unexposed sulcular root surfaces.4
Erythritol powder demonstrates superior cleaning
efficiency while preserving cementum.11,12 and softtissues12
Biofilm removal on root cementum or dentine using
AIRFLOW® PERIO or PLUS Powder results in the least
amount of root substance removal.13

AIR-FLOWING® with erythritol-based
PLUS Powder had the best hardtissue preservation particularly on
the cementum. Use of additionalrubber cup polishing did not add any
extra benefit; on the contrary, it caused
even more abrasion of hard tissue on both enamel andcementum. AIR-FLOWING® can only be recommended
for use with powders that contain glycine or erythritol.14

SYSTEMATIC REVIEWNo hard-tissue damage with AIRFLOW® PLUS Powder
was observed.15
Both AIRFLOW® PERIO and PLUS Powder both have
similar abrasivity and can be used safely on root surface
alterations.15
AIRFLOW® is safe on teeth13 and preserves the rootsurface.

© Prof. Magda Mensi

AIRFLOW® ON EXPOSED DENTINE

1.

Effect of particle diameter on air polishing ofdentin surfaces. Tada, K., Kakuta, K., Ogura, H. &Sato, S. Odontology 98, 31–6 (2010).

9.

In vitro evaluation of novel low abrasive air
polishing powders. Petersilka, G. J. et al. J ClinPeriodontol 30, 9–13 (2003).

2.

Influence of air-polishing devices and abrasiveson root dentin-an in vitro confocal laser
scanning microscope study. Pelka, M.,
Trautmann, S., Petschelt, A. & Lohbauer, U.
Quintessence Int 41, e141-8.

10.

Three-dimensional defect evaluation of air
polishing on extracted human roots. Sahrmann,P., Ronay, V., Schmidlin, P. R., Attin, T. & Paqué,F. J Periodontol 85, 1107–14 (2014).

3.

Comparative Evaluation of Root Surface
Changes by Air-Polishing using Glycine andChlorhexidine Acetate Powder: An in-vitro Study.
Shukla, H. R., Mathur, A., Shetty, N., Makhijani, B.
& Manohar, B. Journal of Nepalese Society ofPeriodontology and Oral Implantology 1, 7–11
(2017).

11.

ROUGHNESS AND LOSS OF SUBSTANCE OF
TOOTH SURFACES AFTER BIOFILM REMOVALWITH DIFFERENT PROCESSING METHODS.
Haas, M., Koller, M. & Arefnia, B. Aust Dent J 1–13 (2018).

12.

The efficacy of air polishing devices insupportive periodontal therapy: A systematic
review and meta-analysis. Ng, E., Byun, R.,Spahr, A. & Divnic-Resnik, T. Quintessence Int 49,453–467 (2018).

13.

Consensus Conference Findings on
Supragingival and Subgingival Air Polishing.
Cobb, C. M. et al. Compend Contin Educ Dent 38,e1–e4 (2017).

14.

In Vitro Study of Surface Changes Induced on
Enamel and Cementum by Different Scaling andPolishing Techniques. Arefnia, B., Koller, M.,
Wimmer, G., Lussi, A. & Haas, M. Oral HealthPrev Dent 19, 85–92 (2021).

15.

Air-Polishing in Subgingival Root Debridement :A Critical Literature Review. Lu, H., He, L., Zhao,Y., Meng, H. & Review, L. PeerJ 2, 1–7 (2017).

4.

5.

6.

Use of a continual sweep motion to compare airpolishing devices, powders and exposure timeon unexposed root cementum. Herr, M. L.,DeLong, R., Li, Y., Lunos, S. A. & Stoltenberg, J. L.
Odontology 105, 311–319 (2017).
Characterization and Streptococcus mutans
adhesion on air polishing dentin. Tada, K., Oda,H., Inatomi, M. & Sato, S. Odontology 102, 284–9(2014).
Analysis of the effects of air polishing powders
containing sodium bicarbonate and glycine on
human teeth. Bühler, J., Schmidli, F., Weiger, R. &Walter, C. Clin Oral Investig 19, 877–85 (2015).

7.

Preservation of root cementum: a comparativeevaluation of power-driven versus hand
instruments. Bozbay, E. et al. Int J Dent Hyg 16,202–209 (2018).

8.

Effects of air polishing on the resin compositedentin interface. Shimizu, Y. et al. Odontology
102, 279–83 (2014).

Benefit from SDA training:swissdentalacademy.com

FA-719 EN Rev. c Ed. 04/2022

References