Abstract
Effects of neutral electrolyzed water (NW) treatment on cleaning or decontamination of removable denture surface of patients at a dental university hospital were examined with reference to the decrease of the amounts of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in this study. All subjects were healthy volunteers without systemic disease and could self-care for own removable denture without other’s help. In the first examination for 8 removable dentures from 5 subjects, 1-min ultrasonic cleaning treatment in NW could remove more than 99.9% of the amount of ATP on 3 removable dentures. The same effect was obtained for other 5 removable dentures by prolonged treatment (2 or 3 min). Subsequently, all 24 removable dentures from 17 subjects were treated for 3 min in NW. Three-min ultrasonic cleaning in NW resulted in 96.7（±8.4）％ removal of the amount of ATP in all removable dentures showing no or little amount of ATP (the decrease rate of ATP: >99.9%) in 17 removable dentures out of 24.
Based on these results, it was conclusive that 3-min ultrasonic cleaning in NW showed high decontamination effect for removable dentures of healthy wearers who can self-care. Therefore, NW may play a useful role for removing contaminants of removable denture.
