Thermal Safety of Er:YAG and Er,Cr:YSGG Lasers in Hard Tissue Removal

Abstract Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the thermal safety of Er:YAG and Er,Cr:YSGG lasers with conventional multi-use and single-use diamond burs. Background Data: Thermal effect of tooth preparation is mostly evaluated through the pulp chamber because it is difficult to measure the temperature of the preparation surface. A new in vitro method was introduced to simultaneously evaluate the heat increase of the preparation surface together with the pulp chamber. Methods: Six laser and bur instrument groups were used to make standardized preparations on buccal surfaces of 60 intact third molars. The preparations removed an equal volume of hard tissue from each tooth (4 mm occluso-gingival × 8 mm mesial-distal × 1.6 mm bucco-lingual). The teeth also included tunnel preparations from the opposite (lingual) surface, exposing the pulpal axial wall (axial dentin wall in contact with the pulp chamber from the preparation surface site). An infrared thermal camera was positioned to capture the prep...