Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy as an adjunctive treatment to ultrasound for the dentin caries-like lesion removal

•The ultrasound device was effective and a conservative approach to remove the caries-like dentin lesion.•Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) promoted antibacterial effect.•The curcumin-mediated aPDT did not impact the dentin microhardness. To evaluate in vitro the efficacy of ultrasound device to remove caries-like dentin and the curcumin-mediated antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) to decontaminate the affected dentin. Bovine dentin specimens (n = 173) of 4 × 4 × 2 mm were first submitted to Knoop surface microhardness to standardize the specimens (29 ± 3 KHN). Artificial caries lesion was induced by Streptococcus mutans strain by biological model for 7 days. Infected dentin was removed (1 min) with the following techniques: dentin excavator, bur at low-speed rotation and ultrasound device. After that, aPDT application was performed using blue LED under 460 nm. Polarized light microscopy (PLM), removal rate (n = 10), cross-sectional microhardness (n = 10), colony forming units per milliliter (CFU) (n = 9) and confocal laser microscopy (CM) (n = 2) were performed. ANOVA with Welch correction, post-hoc Games-Howell and two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's post-hoc tests were used. PLM confirmed the caries lesion formation with a depth of ∼147.9 µm. Groups treated with ultrasound showed lower removal rate (p = 0.001). Regardless of the treatment, the microhardness values increased as function of depth (p ≤ 0.05). Carbide bur showed the highest microhardness value, followed by ultrasound and excavator. CFU and CM showed a significant reduction in S. mutans after aPDT application. Ultrasound was efficient, since it removed infected dentin, preserving the affected dentin and aPDT can be used as a complementary therapy to decontaminate the affected dentin. Ultrasound device may help the clinician to remove dentin caries-like lesions since it is a conservative technique and provided the removal of infected dentin, preserving the affected dentin. aPDT application may be used as a complimentary technique to promote antibacterial effect and possibly minimize the risk of secondary caries. [Display omitted]