Ozone Therapy for Cavities?

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ozone therapy for cavitiesCan ozone be used to treat caries (cavities) without the need for drilling and filling? We recently attended a lecture on the uses of ozone in dentistry. It seems that in most of the world, other than the US, ozone is already being used to disinfect cavities by killing bacteria on direct contact. All you do is expose the carious enamel and dentin to ozone. Ozone can also be used to disinfect root canals.


Ozone therapy in dentistry is being marketed by a company called CuroZone (www.curozone.com), under the product name, HealOzone. The company explains on the front page of its website:
“Up to now, dentistry was convinced: Caries can only be eliminated by removing the dental substance thru drilling and filling. A painful and inaccurate treatment method: Residual caries is present in 80% of the cases. But now there is a new therapy that treats caries using ozone. This therapy is highly effective in the painless removal of caries. Hence, you can tell your patients: “No, there are alternatives”.”

Clearly, Ozone Therapy will appeal to a large patient target group from young to old throughout all generations, because most people are afraid of the pain involved with caries (cavity) treatment. But the caries (cavity) treatment with ozone puts an end to all this!

This device is not being used in the US yet and is awaiting FDA approval. Have any of you dentists outside of the US been using ozone and what can you tell us about your experiences?

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11 Responses to “ Ozone Therapy for Cavities? ”

  • Paul Feuestein, DMD April 26th, 2006

    This therapy along with KaVo’s Diagnodent should be revolutionary. The DiagNodent can detect early lesions and the Curozone should be able to arrest the process at the beginning. There is also aftercare using a remineralization product. It is a hard thought shift leaving decay in but the research seems to support this. Look for studies by Julian Holmes and Ray Bertolotti.

  • Anonymous April 27th, 2006

    Please be very cautious about adopting this. As a senior UK NHS clinician, I am fully aware of the arguments, both for and against using this. To take a balanced judgement, the NHS has an independent body, known as NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, who have looked at ALL the evidence for this technology and has not found any benefit.
    Anecdotally, many clinians who bought into this early on, now have little use for the technolgy and their machines are going dusty.
    It is worth having a very close look at the primary research that was carried out and published.

  • Jeffrey Hoos DMD April 27th, 2006

    Just returned from doing 4 lectures in Australia and Henry Schein has introduced another machine for Ozone to compete with Kavo’s machine.
    There are many dentists who are using Ozone and at first blush seem to be happy. The part I am confused about is care of the tooth that is not restored and the use of the zinc tooth pastes to maintain or reminerilize the tooth. BUT they also love glass inonomers…go figure.

  • Anonymous April 27th, 2006

    Further comment from NICE due soon - see above comments
    http://www.hta.ac.uk/ProjectData/1_project_record_notpublished.asp?PjtId=1415

  • Anonymous April 27th, 2006

    As one of the first users in the UK I have been very disappointed with Ozone technology. We are generally early adopters of new technology and have little trouble reproducing results with other clinical techniques. Why then do we struggle to get this to work? Is it our technique? our machine, or just the emperors new clothes…… We have tried to address the 2 variables within our control without success. Time alone will tell if it is the third. Purchase with extreme care. On a more positive note Diagnodent is a fabulous technology that can really enhance your diagnostic skills adn ability.

  • Steve Koral, DMD May 5th, 2006

    I’ve spent the last year using a little oxygen/ozone generator from Ozone Services, out of British Columbia, that allows me to collect the gas in a plastic syringe and fumigate dental sites. I’ve experimented with fumigating carious lesions, but I’ve been unimpressed with remineralization after several months. Still, ozone is a potent disinfectant. It’s been awesome as a pocket irrigant, and I’ve used it as an adjunct after prepping root canals. It may be the ideal disinfectant after finishing a caries prep. This would be a great research topic, if anyone is really interested. The only caution is - you can’t allow the patient or staff to breathe it; you’ve got to have suction nearby, but that’s no challenge. One thing is clear, though, you don’t need a $25,000 dollar machine to deliver it.

  • Anonymous June 6th, 2006

    Dr Koral,
    This is a potentially very dangerous route to go down. Ozone as you observed is a very potent oxidising agent and if inhaled by a patient has the potential to cause harm to the avleoli of the lungs. The main reason the Kavo product got approval for use is that it includes a closed system to ensure no ozone escapes into the atmosphere / patients mouth/lungs etc. The system includes a destructor filter to ensure that no ozone is relaeased at the end of the process. Where do you think the ozone in your evacuation system goes?
    That said I agree that at present cost for an ozone machine are far in advance of the benefits it brings. I woudl however use the utomost caution with any other device that produces ozone in proximity to my patients.

  • Steve Koral, DMD June 7th, 2006

    Thanks for your comment, Dr. Anonymous; the suction discharge is an important question. My vacuum system discharges into a closed trap and through the plumbing vents to outside. The same concern applies to mercury vapor from removing amalgams.

  • Dr. Cliff Leachman April 3rd, 2008

    This is another Dental ripoff that can join the Aluminum air abraders/ Cerec/ and a bunch of other boat anchors we as dentists buy. It is not using O2 to make ozone it uses ambient air which creates a potpourri of gases including Nitric oxide which negates any benefits. You still have to fill the tooth and it regenerates very little. If you have money to burn and are doing Botox, etc, you’ll buy anything

  • dd April 12th, 2008

    The data on ozone therapy is preliminary. There is a learning curve. Some reports are favorable and some are unfavorable. It would be premature to discount this possible new therapy for caries and root canal treatment.
    As for being too dangerous, dentists used to inject sulfuric acid in root canals. We used to concentrated acid on the surface of vital teeth to bleach them. We used to use arsenic paste in root canals.
    Ozone therapy needs to be evaluated when sufficient data has been accumulated.

  • PF May 30th, 2009

    I need to know the difference benefits to both laser use and ozone use in dentistry. What are the differences?

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