StarBright 5 percent sodium fluoride varnish

What is more important in your practice: Patient care quality or perception? There are pros and cons to everything in life, and fluoride varnish is no exception. In the past few years, there has been a movement toward using white (hydrogenated) rosin in fluoride varnish, based solely on the preference of esthetics over efficacy. If you are using a hydrogenated white varnish, your practice has chosen a misinformed perception of varnish capabilities over high-quality patient care.

There are many factors that affect fluoride release of a varnish. A major contributor is the base material — in many cases rosin. Products that solely use hydrogenated white rosin consistently have lower fluoride release compared to StarBright.

Hydrogenated rosins undergo an additional chemical process, which bleaches the rosin by heating the material with hydrogen gas over a metal catalyst — lead, aluminum, nickel, platinum and/or palladium. The second stage of the process removes as much of the metal residue as possible, but it never completely removes these metals.

In addition to the issue of using metal, the chemical processing of the hydrogenated white rosins causes the varnish to be less adhesive than natural-based rosins. Most of the varnishes using this processed rosin do not adhere well to teeth, and those that initially stick to the surface wear off in a few hours after application. When you attempt to brush the varnish off your teeth, and you do not see the varnish on your toothbrush, it proves it is not still adhering at that point. This means that your patients have a much higher possibility of swallowing the fluoride, as well as ingesting trace amounts of metal.

Natural rosins DO NOT use chemicals or metals to change the color of rosin before being added to the varnish. The natural rosins are heated in a still to allow the unwanted materials to be filtered out through phase separation.

StarBright 5 percent sodium fluoride varnish, manufactured by Nanova Biomaterials, Inc., utilizes a natural-based rosin, eliminating the risks of your patients ingesting chemically-altered rosin. It is sweetened with Xylitol and comes in five delicious flavors: caramel, bubblegum, mint, strawberry and cinnamon.

Due in large part to the natural rosin, StarBright has one of the highest fluoride release rates on the market, according to the Nanova Biomaterials. It actually stays on teeth, ensuring the fluoride goes to the tooth and not the tummy. In addition, when applied in a thin layer to dry teeth, the tinted rosin is not visible on the teeth.

So the Nanova Biomaterials invites you to ask yourself, what is more important to your practice: Patient care quality or a misinformed perception of varnish?