Objectives: The surfaces of maxillo-facial prostheses made of silicone elastomers exposed to soft tissues may interact with saliva and nasal secretion. These body fluids may lead to colonisation of microorganisms on their surfaces leading to their degradation or infection. This study investigated Candida albicans adhesion onto commercial maxillo-facial silicone elastomers based on different polymerisation processes.
Methods: Room-temperature polymerised maxillo-facial silicone elastomers (N=48) (10 mm x 10 mm x 2 mm) processed at different durations [VerSilTal VST-30 (20 min), VST-50 (12h overnight), VST-50F (6h)] were studied. C. albicans was chosen as a model organism for this study. The specimens were randomly divided into two subgroups and incubated in either 1.5 ml simulated saliva or nasal secretion containing C. albicans (ATCC 60193, set to 0.5 OD, 540 nm in advance) for 2h. Candida assays and adherence assays were made by inoculating C. albicans into Mueller Hinton Broth, Fluka added 500 mmol sucrose overnight. After fixation, specimens were stained by using sterilised Methylene Blue stain (Merck) and evaluated under optical microscope and SEM. For each material, on each specimen 15 different areas (mm(2)) were counted. Data were analysed using one-way ANOVA, paired sample t-test and Tukey's HSD (alpha=0.05).
Results: Material type (p<0.05) and exposure media (p<0.05) showed a significant influence on the C. albicans adherence. VST-30 material showed the most C. albicans adherence in both saliva and nasal secretion (mean rank: 99.84 and 53.47, respectively) (p<0.05) and VST-50 had the least colonisation in both media (10.35 and 5.57, respectively). Microscopic evaluation showed clusters of blastospore cells of C. albicans being more spread out on VST-30 whereas cells were more localised on VST-50 and VST-50F.
Significance: Among the tested materials, 12h room-temperature polymerised silicone elastomer resulted in less C. albicans adherence in both artificial saliva and nasal secretion.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dental.2009.09.001 | DOI Listing |
J Biomed Opt
June 2024
Food and Drug Administration, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States.
Significance: Pulse oximeter measurements are commonly relied upon for managing patient care and thus often require human testing before they can be legally marketed. Recent clinical studies have also identified disparities in their measurement of blood oxygen saturation by race or skin pigmentation.
Aim: The development of a reliable bench-top performance test method based on tissue-simulating phantoms has the potential to facilitate pre-market assessment and the development of more accurate and equitable devices.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces
January 2025
Department of Inorganic Polymers, "Petru Poni" Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Aleea Gr. Ghica Voda 41A, 700487 Iasi, Romania.
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Communication and Marine Information Technology of the Ministry of Education, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
Aberration layers (AL) often present significant energy transmission barriers in microwave engineering, electromagnetic waves, and medical ultrasound. However, achieving broadband ultrasonic focusing through aberration layers like the human skull using conventional materials such as metals and elastomers has proven challenging. In this study, we introduce an inverse phase encoding method employing tunable soft metalens to penetrate heterogeneous aberration layers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolym Chem
January 2025
Functional Polymers, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) 8600 Dübendorf Switzerland
Silicone elastomers are widely used in various applications, each demanding different properties and functionalities. To be used in such a broad spectrum, silicones with easily tunable or switchable properties are needed. We showed this is achievable with novel metallo-supramolecular polysiloxanes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Appl Mater Interfaces
December 2024
Complex Materials, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
Silicones find use in a myriad of applications from sealants and adhesives to cooking utensils and medical implants. However, state-of-the-art silicone parts fall short in terms of shape complexity and reprocessability. Advances in three-dimensional printing and the discovery of vitrimers have recently opened opportunities for shaping and recycling of silicone objects.
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