Background: Direct pulp capping involves the application of a dental material to seal communications between the exposed pulp and the oral cavity to act as a barrier, protect the dental pulp complex and preserve its vitality. The more the antimicrobial effect of the pulp capping material, the less incidence of infection and inflammation of the pulp with eventually increasing the ability of the pulp cells to proliferate and differentiate for secondary dentin formation and pulp protection.
Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare, by the agar well diffusion test, the antimicrobial activity of five different pulp-capping materials: Dycal, Urbical , TheraCal, Mineral Trioxide Aggregate and Biodentine. Methods: Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus strains were selected to evaluate the antimicrobial activity by the agar disc diffusion test of different pulp capping materials. Paper disks were impregnated with each pulp capping materials and placed onto culture agar-plates pre-adsorbed with bacterial cells and further incubated at 37°C. The inhibition zone around each pulp capping materials was recorded and compared for each bacterial strain. The collected data were statistically analyzed using one-way ANOVA at p ≤0.05.
Results: For both types of bacteria, there was a significant difference between all groups. Biodentine group was significantly higher antibacterial activity and greater inhibition zone than other groups.
Conclusions: Biodentine presented better antibacterial activity when compared with other tested materials in short and long-term period.
Key words: Antibacterial effect, Biodentine, calcium hydroxide, Urbical, Mineral Trioxide Aggregate ,dental materials, Streptococcus mutans, Lactobacillus, , pulp capping.