Abstract
Recent remarkable progress in the laser technology has induced many potential applications to dentistry.
In the present study, by noticing on the preferential cavity formation on the carious tooth to the sound ones by laser irradiation, efficient removal of the dental caries was attempted by controlling the irradiation condition of YAG laser. On the sound bovine tooth, cavities with various size were performed, and 10 to 50% increase in the volume was observed on the black stained tooth.
Meanwhile, on the bovine enamel with artificial primary caries, facility of cavity formation increased markedly and cavity was produced by the weak irradiation which showed no trace on the sound enamel. In the case of bovine dentine, size of cavity on the artificial caries was two times as large as that of sound dentine. Likewisely, apparent difference was obtained in the human teeth both with artificial and natural caries, and for instance, the cavity on the natural carious teeth was 30 times as large as that on the sound one.
