Athina Bakopoulou,1 Triantafillos Papadopoulos,2* and Pavlos Garefis1
1Department of Fixed & Implant Prosthodontics, School of Dentistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 541 24, Greece; E-Mails:athinabakopoulou@hotmail.com (B.A.);Email: garefis@dent.auth.gr
(G.P.)
2Department of Biomaterials, School of Dentistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, 115 27, Greece
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:trpapad@dent.uoa.gr (P.T.); Tel. +302-107-461-100; Fax: +302-107-461-306.
Received July 7, 2009; Revised August 24, 2009; Accepted September 2, 2009.
This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Abstract
Resin-based dental restorative materials are extensively used today in dentistry. However, significant concerns still remain regarding their biocompatibility. For this reason, significant scientific effort has been focused on the determination of the molecular toxicology of substances released by these biomaterials, using several tools for risk assessment, including exposure assessment, hazard identification and dose-response analysis. These studies have shown that substances released by these materials can cause significant cytotoxic and genotoxic effects, leading to irreversible disturbance of basic cellular functions. The aim of this article is to review current knowledge related to dental composites’ molecular toxicology and to give implications for possible improvements concerning their biocompatibility.
Keywords: dental composite resins, molecular toxicology, biocompatibility, biodegradation, cytotoxicity, genotoxicity
Int J Mol Sci. 2009 September; 10(9): 3861–3899.
Published online 2009 September 4. doi: 10.3390/ijms10093861.
PMCID: PMC2769064
Copyright © 2009 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.