Authors: Osama Safwat Mohamed, Inas Karawia.
Introduction: Green tea is a natural herb, that has catechin, theanine and amino acids with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and anti-mutagenic properties that can improve the salivary parameters and consequently protect the oral cavity from diseases. So, the study aimed to investigate the effect of green tea varnish on remineralization of artificial caries and compare its effect with fluoride varnish.
Materials and Methods: 30 extracted sound teeth were kept in demineralizing solution for 4 days, to artificially form caries-like lesions. The teeth were divided equally and randomly into three groups. Group 1 was treated with green tea varnish, group 2 was treated with sodium fluoride varnish, and group 3 left without treatment. After treatment pH cycling was done.
Results: The mean Ca weight% of green tea and fluoride varnish groups (36.85 ± 0.59 and 37.51 ± 0.65 respectively) were significantly higher than the control group (26.98 ± 0.24). Also, the mean p weight% was found to be significantly higher in the green tea group (17.50 ± 0.36) and fluoride group (18.31 ± 0.40) versus the control group (13.91 ± 0.15).
Conclusions: Green tea varnish had the same remineralizing effect as Fluoride varnish.
Recommendations: More studies are required using other concentrations of green tea varnish and may use more than one application, and in vivo studies need to be done.