Light Curing: So Easy, So Dangerous!
In these videos, Dr. Richard Price, Professor and Head of Fixed Prosthodontics in the Department of Dental Clinical Sciences at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Dentistry, shares excellent clinical information related to light curing. The video has been divided into short theme section as follows:
Light curing so easy, so dangerous!
Complete video (27 minutes)
The perfect storm
The success of 122+ million restorations and 16+ million sealants placed annually depends on the curing lights and how it is used. Do we have any evidence that resin restorations are not lasting as long as they could and should?
Various curing modes and irradience
We are all familiar with the continuous curing mode where the light is on delivering the same intensity throughout the entire curing time. We also have high energy pulse curing where a very high irradience is provided for a very short time.
Energy density
What’s energy density? If you multiply the irradience by the time the light is being used, you will get the energy density and that’s reported in J/cm2. So how much energy is required to cure a resin?
Light curing seems so easy!
One of the problems we have is that light curing appears so easy. Here we can see an example of less than ideal light curing. But even with this less-than-ideal technique, we see that the top of the resin appears hard. When we turn it over and we look at the bottom, we’ll see the bottom is actually quite soft!
The operator, Dental radiometeres, and MARC
Were you ever taught how to use a curing light? And if you did receive any instruction on how to use a curing light, what were you told?
Blue light is dangerous
What do I mean by curing light could be dangerous? Well, blue light can cause photoretinitis, premature aging of the retina, and macular degeneration.
Conclusion
Light curing is more complicated that it appears!
Do you need further information related to this subject? Do you have any comments or suggestions? Email us at oasisdiscussions@cda-adc.ca
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Worth the 27 minutes it takes.
Thank you. We have an article published in the Professional Products Review of the American Dental Association that we are trying to make available to Oasis members. Keep an eye out for it.