Dental News - ‘The power of one …’

Robin Goodman, DTA

Mon. 18 May 2009

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ANAHEIM, CA, USA: In an interview with Dental Tribune at the recent California Dental Association meeting (15 to 17 May), C. Brian Melonakos, president and CEO of Shofu, discussed his company’s new BeautiBond seventh-generation bonding agent featuring dual adhesive monomers for dentin and enamel.

What’s so unique about Shofu's new product BeautiBond?
What is really unique about BeautiBond is that there are many dentists who still do not feel confident using seventh-generation bonding agents. This is often related to not having enough confidence that they will remain secure and have a strong enough bond to both enamel and dentin or across all indications.

So, this product, which was designed by our research team in Japan primarily for the American market, is meant to be a single component, very easy-to-use bonding agent that will finally give fourth-, fifth- and sixth-generation users the confidence that they can use this. And the way that happens is they designed two unique adhesive monomers.

One adhesive monomer for dentin and another for enamel, and that is really unique among the seventh generation. They also, in addition to that, developed a unique polymerization catalyst to ensure that you get full cure, full polymerization with the BeautiBond.

One of the other two main features to mention is the fact that it has extremely low film thickness, only 5 microns. For example, the market leader in the bonding category has 40 microns film thickness, so we really feel like that’s an advantage. Another advantage is that we’re hema free. Many of the bonding agents include hema, and over time hema tends to absorb water, which can weaken the bond. And we’re pleased to show that in clinical testing we’ve done that the thermo cycling, at 10,000 cycles, we maintain, if not slightly increase, the bond strength to both enamel and dentin over time. The two monomers are phosphonic acid monomer, which is preferentially bonded to enamel, and carboxylic acid monomer, which is bonded to dentin.

We have a clinical study that’s been going for about a year now, with Dr Mark Latta, who is head of research at Creighton University. This product is being studied in conjunction not only with our own composite, but with competitive materials. We specifically designed this product to be used with all composites, so that’s an important point as well.

How is the product packaged?
It comes in unit doses, which is another advantage because you do not have to worry about evaporation of the material if you leave the bottle open.

You’ve already had some prominent dentists using BeautiBond I believe, is that true?
Yes, of course. There’s Dr George Freedman, who wrote a First Impressions article for Dentistry Today about it. Then there is Jim Dunn, who spoke at the recent AACD (America Association of Cosmetic Dentistry) meeting two weeks ago in Hawaii. Also, a prominent dentist from Japan, Dr Takahashi, who came in and also lectured at the AACD on BeautiBond and on our composite material, which is Beautifil II. Dr Howard Glazer from the New York area has been incorporating this into his lectures for a few months now, and we have a nice video of Dr Glazer and an animation piece that shows the step-by-step technique. These can be viewed on our Web site, so it’s very easy for dentists to familiarize themselves with the technique and procedures involved.

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