Background and Objectives: Oral health values are an indicator of how people decide their priorities for oral health—an integral part of general health. The purpose of the study was the validation of the Oral Health Values Scale (OHVS), which measures the extent to which individuals invest in their oral health and which includes four factors: Professional dental care, Appearance, Flossing, and Retention of teeth. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of adults (n = 869; Mean age = 32.98) who completed the online questionnaire set. The OHVS was translated into Romanian through the forward-backward translation procedure. The construct validity was assessed through a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) based on the maximum likelihood estimation method. The convergent validity was assessed by associating the OHVS with scales that evaluate the oral health quality of life (OHIP-14), the attitude towards one’s dentist (R-DBS), oral self-care (DNS), and general health literacy (GHL). The internal consistency was examined using Cronbach’s α and McDonald’s ω. Results: The CFA supports the four-factor model of the scale. The OHVS total score and its subscales are negatively associated with the impact of oral health on the quality of life (except for the Appearance subscale) and with a distrust in the dentist’s treatments; they are positively associated with oral self-care and general health literacy. The gender difference shows females have higher scores on all four subscales. The internal consistency is good for Appearance, Flossing, and the OHVS total score, but weak for Professional dental care and Retention. Conclusions: OHVS is a valid instrument in the Romanian context that can enrich the set of tools that contribute to oral health research, especially in epidemiological studies.

Dental pulp vitality preservation in dental caries treatment is a major goal in odontotherapy. The main objective of this study was to compare dental pulp tissue responses to vital therapies in deep carious lesions, using different calcium-based materials. An ambispective study was conducted on 47 patients. Ninety-five teeth with deep carious lesions were treated. Among them, 25 (26.32%) were diagnosed with pulpal exposures and treated by direct pulp capping. Indirect pulp capping was applied when pulp exposure was absent (n = 70; 73.68%). Fifty teeth (52.63%) were treated with TheraCal LC (prospective study), 31 teeth (32.63%) with Calcimol LC, and 14 teeth (14.74%) with Life Kerr AC (retrospective study). The results show that the survival rate for dental pulp was 100% for Life Kerr AC, 92% for TheraCal LC, and 83.87% for Calcimol LC, without significant differences. Apparently, self-setting calcium hydroxide material provided better dental pulp response than the two light-cured materials, regardless of their composition, that is, either calcium -hydroxide or calcium silicate-based. We will need a significant number of long-term clinical studies with the highest levels of evidence to determine the most adequate biomaterials for vital pulp therapies.

Background: The pterional approach for craniotomy, one of the most used surgical intervention in neurosurgery, results in a series of postoperative changes that, if they persist, affect the patient’s life, social reintegration, and his/her physical and mental recovery. The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a questionnaire for indicating directly affected masticatory muscles groups and facial nerve branches, in patients undergoing the pterional approach in neurosurgery, so that the recovery therapy can be monitored and personalized. Methods: A self-reporting questionnaire consisting of 18 items (12 for postoperative masticatory status and 6 for facial nerve branches involvement), validated on fifteen patients, following three steps: items development, scale development, and scale evaluation, was prospectively applied twice, at a one-year interval (T0 and T1), with thirty-two patients suffering from vascular or tumoral pathology and surgically treated through a pterional approach. Results: No statistically significant correlation could be found between postoperative outcomes and age or gender. Facial nerve branch involvement could not be correlated with any of the assessed variables. Pathology and time elapsed from surgery were statistically significantly correlated to preauricular pain on the non-operated side (p = 0.008 and p = 0.034, respectively). Time elapsed from surgery was statistically significantly correlated to the ability to chew hard food, pain while yawning, and preauricular pain during back and forward jaw movements and gradual mouth opening. Conclusions: We created and validated a valuable patient-centered questionnaire that can be employed as a tool for postoperative assessment of directly affected masticatory muscles and groups of facial nerve branches.

This study aimed to assess the in vitro biocompatibility of titanium (Ti) alloy orthodontic mini-implants by correlating human osteoblasts (HOb) response with chemical composition and surface morphology of mini-implants. HOb were cultivated with or without custom-made and commercial mini-implants, discs and filings. The surface morphology and chemical composition of the implants were assessed under the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) microanalysis system. Cell viability, adhesion and proliferation were analyzed by optical microscopy and flow cytometry. 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium (MTS) reduction and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release tests were used to assess the cytotoxicity of discs and filings-treated culture medium. Shape, adhesion, and multiplication of HOb were not significantly altered by the presence of mini-implants, discs or filings in culture, even though Ti alloy may exert in vitro a low cytotoxic effect on HOb adhered to discs. Morphology analysis by SEM demonstrated that custom-made mini implants' surface differs from that of commercial mini-screws in terms of surface finish and roughness, whilst EDX analysis showed largely similar percentages of Ti, aluminum and vanadium for the two types of implants. No major differences were noticed regarding the effect exerted in vitro on HOb by the investigated implants. The new mini-implants have a convenient in vitro cytotoxicity profile on HOb.

Backround: This cross-sectional study aimed to quantify the proportion of 3D tooth–face superimposition in young adults and examine age- and gender-related differences. Methods: In 98 dental students, intraoral MCI and facial scans were acquired under standardized protocols, processed in Mesh Mixer v. 3.5.474and Blender v. 4.3.2., and aligned to reference planes for superimposition. Residual tooth volume, reflecting tooth–face correspondence, was computed via Boolean subtraction. Statistical analyses were performed in IBM SPSS Statistics 25 at α = 0.05. Results: Total tooth volume (1,626,120.79 ± 210,659.56 × 10³) exceeded the superimposed volume by 285,052.34 × 10³ (17.53%; 95% CI: 15.84–19.22%; p < 0.001), giving a superimposition proportion of 82.6%. Positive correlations between total and remaining tooth volumes were observed overall (ρ = 0.448; p < 0.001), in females (ρ = 0.515; p < 0.001), and in participants < 21 years (ρ = 0.662; p < 0.001). Men had higher total tooth volume than women (1,706,232 ± 151,086 vs. 1,583,561 ± 225,978; p = 0.005). Conclusions: Volumetric analysis revealed high but incomplete dentofacial correspondence. Larger tooth volumes were associated with greater incongruence in females and younger participants, confirming volumetric size as a determinant of morphological congruence. Results highlight clinically meaningful superimposition, supporting the MCI as a reliable reference for restorative planning and esthetic reconstructions, and emphasize the value of 3D analysis for precise dentofacial evaluation and individualized esthetic planning.

Objectives. To describe the shade distribution and regional colour variation in a cohort of dental students and to quantify the agreement and shade-designation-derived colour difference between the VITA Easyshade V (VITA Zahnfabrik H. Rauter GmbH & Co. KG, Bad Saeckingen, Germany) spectrophotometer and the 3Shape TRIOS 5 (3Shape A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark) intraoral scanner at the cervical, middle and incisal thirds of the maxillary right central incisor, in both the VITA Classical and VITA 3D-Master systems. Methods. Tooth 11 was measured in 146 dental students with both devices at the three regions, the middle third serving as the representative body shade. The primary agreement outcome was the quadratic-weighted kappa of the Classical body shade, complemented by the paradox-robust Gwet AC1 and Brennan–Prediger coefficients; colour differences were obtained from published tab coordinates and not from coordinates measured on the teeth. Results. For the body shade (n = 144 teeth with an interpretable Classical designation from both instruments), exact agreement was 25.0% and Cohen’s kappa was near zero, the shades having clustered in a few light tabs. The primary outcome, the quadratic-weighted kappa, was 0.20 (95% confidence interval 0.09 to 0.34), with Gwet’s AC1 0.21 (0.12 to 0.27), Brennan–Prediger 0.19 (0.10 to 0.26) and an intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC(3,1), of 0.22 (0.03 to 0.39), none of them better than fair, and agreement on the 3D-Master lightness group was lower still. The scanner read lighter than the spectrophotometer by a mean of 1.80 value-ordered Classical units (Wilcoxon signed-rank p < 0.001) and by close to one lightness group on 3D-Master, and the two instruments distributed the shades differently at every region in both systems (Stuart–Maxwell p < 0.001). The scanner assigned a bleached 3D-Master shade in at least one region in 16.4% of participants against 1.4% for the spectrophotometer. On the Classical scale, agreement was weakest at the incisal third (Cohen’s kappa −0.03, quadratic-weighted kappa 0.03, Spearman 0.07, p = 0.42), where the mean signed difference was the smallest of any region, −0.39 units, and the dispersion the widest, with a mean absolute difference of 2.96 units and a standard deviation of 3.98 units. Colour varied across the three regions with both devices (Friedman p < 0.001), and the colour difference implied by the assigned tabs was above the 1.8-unit CIEDE2000 acceptability threshold for most tab pairs, carried by the lightness axis. Conclusions. The two instruments are not interchangeable. The scanner reads teeth as systematically lighter, most clearly at the cervical third and, on the Classical scale, least reliably at the incisal third, so a single device should be used throughout a case. With no independent reference standard, these data describe agreement and relative bias rather than accuracy. The scanner remains convenient for digital shade communication provided its lighter bias is taken into account.