Background. The retromolar canal (RMC) is an anatomical variation that can cause complications in dental procedures. Method. The RMC was evaluated according to age, sex, and presence of accessory mandibular canal and accessory mental foramen, on both sides in 500 panoramic radiographs, belonging to individuals at the age of 7 to 20 years. The associations of interest were studied through Fisher's Exact Test and Pearson's Chi-Square Test, and the correlation was studied through Pearson's Correlation Coefficient (r). The significance level used was 5%. Results. The RMC was observed in 44 radiographs (8.8%), and out of those 24 were females. There was no statistically significant association between the RMC and age (p > 0.05; Fisher's Exact Test), sex (p = 0.787; Pearson's Chi-Square Test), amount of mandibular canals and mental foramina, on both sides (p > 0.05; Pearson's Chi-Square Test). There was a significant association between RMC and side, the higher frequency of the canal being on the right side (p < 0.05; Fisher's Exact Test). Conclusions. Despite the low occurrence of the RMC, its identification and the verification of its dimensions and path are relevant, mainly in cases when anesthetic and surgical procedures can present failures or difficulties.

Although bone autografts have been routinely used as "gold standard" for reconstruction/ replacement bone defects, because they have osteogenic, osteoinductive, osteoconductive properties, they have a high number of viable cells and are rich in growth factors. However, the use of autograft is limited by several factors, being one of them the insufficient amount of donor tissue. Therefore, bone substitute materials have been extensively studied in order to develop an ideal material for substitution of bone grafts, due to some disadvantages presented by autografts, allografts and xenografts, such as poor bone quality, an inadequate amount of bone and possible immunogenicity for allografts and xenografts, which limit the use of these grafts in specific surgical protocols. These disadvantages have led tissue engineering and biotechnology to develop new materials and promising methods for tissue repair, especially for bone tissue. Thus, bone substitutes, synthetic and/or biotechnologically processed have become potential materials for clinical applications in different areas of health. An ideal bone substitute (BS) material should provide a variety of shapes and sizes with suitable mechanical properties to be used in sites where there are impact loading; moreover, these materials should be biocompatible, osteoconductive, preferably being resorbable and replaced by new bone formation. In general, resorbable BS materials are preferred, since these materials are expected to preserve the increased bone volume during the reconstruction and simultaneously are gradually replaced by newly formed bone. Synthetic materials, denominated as alloplastics, may act as scaffolds for bone cells providing tissue growth inside the respective material.

This manuscript focuses on the effect of the addition of a low molecular weight triblock copolymer derived from ε-caprolactone and tetrahydrofuran (CT) on the compatibility and cytotoxicity of immiscible poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) blends. Binary and tertiary PLA/PCL blends were prepared by melt mixing in a twin-screw extruder and their morphological, mechanical and thermal behaviors were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), tensile and Izod impact test, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). SEM micrographs showed the CT copolymer suppressed the coalescence phenomena and maintained the size of dispersed PCL domains at approximately 0.35µm. Bioresorbable PLA/PCL blends containing 5wt% of CT copolymer exhibited a remarkable increase in ductility and improved toughness at room temperature. Although the CT copolymer increased the interfacial adhesion, the DMA results suggest it also acts as a plasticizer exclusively for the PCL phase. The cell viability evaluated by the XTT assay confirmed PLA/PCL blends compatibilized by CT copolymer exerted no cytotoxic effect.