Prof. Junji Tagami is the former chair of the cariology and operative dentistry department at Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan. He was first introduced to Kuraray’s products as an undergraduate dental student back in 1979, when he used the original CLEARFIL BOND SYSTEM F and composite resin for patients as part of his clinical training programme, and he has worked with the company and its products ever since.

“Since that time, I have collaborated with Kuraray on the development of adhesive resins, composite resins and resin cements,” Prof. Tagami said, adding that CLEARFIL SE BOND 2, PANAVIA V5 and CLEARFIL MAJESTY ES Flow are some of the company’s products that he uses in everyday practice.

Together with Prof. Bart Van Meerbeek, Prof. Tagami will be delivering a lecture on the latest direct bonding and adhesive luting technologies at the symposium. In his view, for universal adhesives to successfully create durable dental bonds, they must possess “very good penetration to the dentine and enamel surfaces, as well as sufficient polymerisation to create a durable bond layer”.

“For penetration, hydrophilicity is required—yet hydrophobicity is needed for better polymerisation,” he explained. “The apparent opposition of these two factors has to be resolved for the durable bonding of the universal bond, and a new amide-based monomer developed by Kuraray Noritake Dental is thought to be a very excellent technology in this regard.”

A different path

For Dr Gerard Chiche, his journey to using Kuraray Noritake Dental’s products came through his exposure, as a ceramist, to Noritake porcelain.

“I was working together with Hitoshi Aoshima, an extraordinary master ceramist in Tokyo, and when Noritake and Kuraray merged to become one company in 2012, I was properly introduced to its adhesive and cement technologies,” he said.

As a clinical professor at the Dental College of Georgia at Augusta University in the US, Dr Chiche was already aware of the “exceptional performance of CLEARFIL SE Bond” through the work of his previous university’s biomaterials research department. This led him to conduct an in-depth investigation of the physical and chemical properties of Kuraray Noritake Dental’s products.

“We became particularly interested in the convenient wave-cure ability of the PANAVIA SA cement and developed a wealth of clinical experience through its successive generations,” he said.

“At the same time, Kuraray Noritake Dental’s single-bottle adhesive technology led to CLEARFIL Universal Bond Quick, and we have extensively used this in combination with PANAVIA SA Universal for all-ceramic crowns and fixed partial dentures,” Dr Chiche added.

At the upcoming symposium, Dr Chiche will pair up with Prof. Markus Blatz to outline their decade of experience in using Kuraray Noritake Dental’s self-etching adhesives to bond all-ceramic crowns and onlays. In Dr Chiche’s view, the results these experts have achieved are not limited to the domain of a specialist dentist.

“For several years, I have delivered lectures that feature very simple crown bonding protocols using the pairing of CLEARFIL Universal Bond Quick with PANAVIA SA Universal, and these protocols are easily within the capabilities of general practitioners and even dental students,” he said.

“What is critical, however, is maintaining strict discipline in the adjunct procedures that form part of the process, such as proper isolation and field control, thorough cleaning of the tooth preparation and decontamination of the all-ceramic crown or onlay after try-in.”

Join the celebrations on 7 October

For its tenth anniversary symposium, Kuraray Noritake Dental will be featuring a mix of presentations and short videos that provide both an overview of its products and insights from employees into what working at the company is like.

“I hope attendees learn and take away information that helps them better decide which adhesive materials and restorative materials will help them achieve optimal performance for their clinical cases,” Prof. Tagami concluded.

More information about the symposium can be found on the Kuraray Noritake Dental website.