John Rafelt, scientific affairs manager at 3M Oral Care UK and Ireland, discusses how practitioners can save 80 per cent of cement waste.
Cement mixing via an automix syringe has always been a challenge for product development teams. The combination of mixing tip length, design of the internal tip spiral, the chemistry of the material and the timings of the dual cure activators are all key in making sure a dental cement works correctly and has the specified working and setting time to allow accurate seating of indirect restorations. The limitation is that the remaining volume of cement in the tip after dispensing is waste and must be disposed of.
For the last few years, 3M has gone back to the drawing board and created a brand-new innovative tip that uses less plastic and reduces cement waste by 80 per cent when compared to current automix delivery systems, without compromising performance and cement properties.
The new design allows for a reduction in waste, less material needed per application, and a much smaller syringe system compared with other automix cements on the market. A smaller syringe obviously results in less plastic waste, but also less storage space for the clinician.
The latest addition to the RelyX family of dental cements – 3M RelyX Universal – can be used as a self-adhesive resin cement. Used in combination with the new 3M Scotchbond Universal Plus, it is a fully aligned system that consists of only two components for the cementation of all indications. Some of the highlights of the new system are covered below:
- Simplifies the resin cement workflow and training of operating personnel by reducing work steps and possible errors.
- The cement initiates and cures the adhesive without an additional light-cure step.
- The already high bond strength of the cement in self-adhesive mode can be further enhanced with the adhesive.
- The system shows higher bond strength values to zirconia than competitors, as found in a Dental Advisor study.
- Both products show virtually no post-operative sensitivity.
- The system enables a therapy completely based on BPA derivative-free formulations.
A recent study from The Dental Advisor found that, “The new 3M mixing tips were about five times more efficient in terms of cement waste than the Mixpac helical taper mixing tips included with four common cements and over six times more efficient than the longer helical mixing tip included with Maxcem Elite Chroma. The new 3M syringe packaging had half as much plastic waste per application as other automix cement systems. Overall, the new 3M system utilised around 67 per cent of the packaged cement towards filling crowns, while the next closest system used less than 32 per cent. The 3M RelyX Universal system can give up to 15 full applications for an average use of 90µL, and up to 20 applications for cases requiring 60 µL aliquots.”
References available upon request.