Dielectrophoresis: A model to transport drugs directly into teeth

Abstract

The article describes an innovative delivery system based on the principles of dielectrophoresis to transport drugs directly into site-specific intraoral targets. The hypothesis that a drug can be driven into tooth enamel during the application of an applied electrical potential difference was tested by the authors in in vitro studies comparing dielectrophoresis to diffusion to transport carbamide peroxide and fluoride. The studies showed that these agents can be transported directly into teeth using an alternating current (AC) electric field more effectively than diffusion. It was found that a 20-min bleaching treatment on human teeth with dielectrophoresis increased carbamide peroxide absorption by 104% and, on average, improved the change in shade guide unit 14 times from 0.6 SGU to 9 SGU. After applying a 1.23% acidulated phosphate fluoride gel to bovine incisors for 20 min by dielectrophoresis or diffusion, analysis with wavelength dispersive spectrometry determined that dielectrophoresis doubled fluoride uptake in the superficial layers compared to diffusion, and drove the fluoride significantly deeper into enamel with an uptake 600% higher than diffusion at 50 μm depth. Finally, dielectrophoresis promises to be a viable model that can potentially be used clinically to deliver other targeted drugs of variable molecular weight and structure.

Administration of Ascorbic Acid to Prevent Bleaching-induced Tooth Sensitivity: A Randomized Triple-blind Clinical Trial

“…When this technology becomes clinically feasible, it may reduce the oral systemic route of many drugs, overcoming the disadvantages of peroral route administration, and allowing fast delivery of drugs to the pulp tissue. 41 With regard to the bleaching outcome, the results of this study indicated that both groups demonstrated equivalent and significant tooth shade enhancement when compared with the baseline (Table 3), and thus the third null hypothesis was not rejected. The comparison of shade change after in-office bleaching with existing literature is difficult, due to the different methods of measurement (shade guides and spectrophotometers) and different units of measurement (eg, CIELab system, shade guide units) employed.…”

Barrier contactless dielectrophoresis: A new approach to particle separation

“…The ability to manipulate biological particles (cells, viruses, proteins, DNA molecules) is important for biomedicine , biotechnology , and other fields related to biological micro‐ and nanoobjects.…”

Dielectrophoresis for Bioparticle Manipulation

“…The precise control of particles, especially cells, viruses, proteins, DNA molecules and other biological particles, has widespread application prospects in biomedical [6], bioscience [7] and other fields [8]. …”