Force degradation and staining of aesthetic chain elastics when submitted to different phytotherapic rinses / Degradação forçada e coloração de elásticos de cadeia estética quando submetidos a diferentes enxaguamentos fitoterápicos

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the color (?E*) and the degradation of the strength of chain elastics when submitted to different rinses. Forty segments of aesthetics chain elastics (American Orthodontics) were maintained extended in distilled water at 37°C. The elastics (n=10) were immersed twice a day for 60 seconds each in the following solutions: Chlorhexidine Gluconate; Grapefruit essential oil; Ginger and distilled water. The readings were performed in the following times: initial, 24 hours, 7, 14, 21, and 28 days using universal testing machine and spectrophotometer. The force degradation data were analyzed by mixed models for repeated measurements in time, and the data from ?E* were evaluated by Kruskal Wallis and Dunn and Friedmann and Nemenyi (?=5%). Except for the group immersed in Ginger, there was a significant decrease in force degradation after 24 hours (p0.05); after 7 days there was force recovery for all solutions. For ?E* it was found that there was no statistically significant difference between the solutions for most of the time. However, after 28 days Chlorhexidine showed less ?E* than the other solutions. It is concluded that the time in which the elastic chain is stretched influences the degradation of strength; immersions in rinses with the exception of ginger solution degrade the strength after 24 hours and; there is color change for all solutions after 28 days.