Root Damage in Mechanically Fatigued Teeth
According to one theory of root resorption, occlusal trauma during orthodontic tooth movement damages the cementum covering the root dentin. The body detects the exposed dentin and seeks to remove it, and the result is root resorption. This experiment will explore an aspect of this theory by quantifying the amount and location of damage in mechanically fatigued teeth. Nine dog mandibles were sectioned at the mandibular symphysis. Each half was mounted in orthodontic resin with the incisors upright and exposed. The block was inserted into a jig and placed into a servohydraulic mechanical testing machine. The left central incisor was fatigue loaded with a 2Hz, 10-90 N sinusoidal force for 100,000 cycles (approximately 14 hours). The right central incisor served as the control. Both specimens were scanned with a micro-CT unit, stained with basic fuchsin, and then sectioned along the sagittal plane. Because the experimental and control specimens were stained before sectioning, only microdamage due to the loading process would be evident in the sections. Microdamage which occurred during the sectioning process would not be stained. Central sections through the long axes of the samples were examined for the presence of microdamage with a light microscope and a micro-CT unit. Based on preliminary findings, two types of staining patterns were measured and recorded. The first was called "diffuse stain" and consisted of large stained areas in the dentinal tubules. Diffuse stain was not associated with any visible features at the dentinocemental junction. The second type of staining pattern was called "stained defects." Stained defects were stained irregularities at the dentinocemental junction. For statistical analysis, the roots were divided into buccal-cervical, buccal-middle, buccal-apical, lingual-cervical, lingual-middle, and lingual-apical regions. Comparisons between the fatigued and non-fatigued teeth for differences in area, length, and depth were made under the generalized estimating equation (GEE) framework applied to normally-distributed data. Because the measurements were not normally distributed, a rank transformation of the measurements was performed before conducting the analyses. Comparisons between the fatigued and non-fatigued teeth for differences in presence or absence of stain or defects were made using Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel tests. Repeatability of the measurements was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), paired t-tests, and Bland-Altman plots. The ICC's ranged from 0 .85 to 1.00, thus making the repeatability of the measurements generally very good. The statistical analysis showed there were no significant differences between the experimental and control teeth for stained defects or diffuse staining for length, depth, or area measurements. However, analyses comparing the distribution of stained defects and diffuse stain within the control and experimental specimens showed significant differences in the distribution of stained defects within the experimental specimens. In the experimental specimens, the stained defects were distributed in a gradient, with the most in the apical region and progressing to the least amount in the cervical region. In the control specimens, there was only a difference in the stained defects between the cervical and apical regions. This distribution is consistent with the biomechanical model which shows increasing stress moving from the cervical region towards the apex. These results show that the test and control specimens differed in how the stained defects were distributed throughout the root, even though there were no differences in the amount of staining between the control and experimental specimens. Whole tooth and histologic slides were scanned with the micro-CT unit, but the dentinocemental junction could not be delineated enough to make any measurements. No data could be collected regarding microdamage in this area using the micro-CT unit. It was recommended that future studies use a tomography unit with better resolution, use a larger samples size, employ a contrast agent when trying to visualize microdamage with the micro-CT unit, and incorporate a way to measure the intensity of the staining in addition to the location and size.
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