Purpose: The aim of this study was to quantify the changes in post-orthodontic demineralized enamel lesion surface areas after using casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP-ACP).
Methods: Ten orthodontic patients (mean age, 17.7 years) were involved in this study who had multiple decalcified enamel lesion after fixed orthodontic therapy. Ten percent of CPP-ACP paste (GC Tooth Mousse, Recaldent, Europe) was taught to spread on tooth surface two times per day immediately after tooth brush. Standardized intraoral images were taken before and after using it. Image analysis software Image-Pro Plus was used to quantify the visible areas of the demineralized lesions which were expressed as a percentage of total labial surface areas of each tooth. The measurement data before and after using CPP-ACP for 1 month and 2 months were analyzed by paired t test. The measurement of image was repeated again 1 month later to determine the repeatability of the method by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient between the two results of analysis with SPSS13.0 software package.
Results: CPP-ACP significantly reduced the visible enamel demineralization (P<0.01, paired t test). The mean reduction in lesion size after treatment was 4.89%(SD:2.05%; 95% CI: 1.93%-8.77%) for 1 month, and 2 months was 8.359%(SD: 3.472%; 95% CI: 3.76%-15.01%). The intraclass correlation coefficient between the two measurements was 0.968.
Conclusions: CPP-ACP can effectively improve the long-standing postorthodontic demineralized enamel white lesion, and the intraoral image analysis is an reliable and repeatable method to measure white spot lesions. Supported by Research Fund from Bureau of Science and Technology of Changchun City (Grant No. 2008108).