THE PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPARISON OF ENAMEL SURFACES ROUGHENED BY DIFFERENT METHODS

Objective: aim of this study was to investigate the effect of three different roughening methods on the enamel surface, and also to determine less harmful the roughening method on the enamel surfaces. materials and methods: newly extracted thirty premolar teeth were divided into three groups randomly. group i (n=10) were etched with 37% phosphoric acid. group ii (n=10) were roughened with 18% hcl and pumice mixture (microabrasion). group iii (n=10) were sandblasted with 50 μ aluminum oxide particles. standardized surface photographs were taken by using a digital photograph machine, and these photographs are scored. the descriptive statistics were calculated for each group. wilcoxon signed ranks was executed to evaluate differences of scores. p values less than to .05 were considered statistically significant. results: enamel roughening was observed in all groups, with the most extensive roughening in group i and the smallest in group ii. there was appeared that microabrasion method gave clinically the finest enamel surface. (p=0.03) conclusions: microabrasion with 18% hcl and pumice mixture which alternative enamel roughening method has given very close appearances to original enamel surface. fine polished enamel surfaces occur after the microabrasion convenience of dental plaque control during orthodontic treatment.