Nur Ayman Abdul HayeiNoor Azlin YahyaSyarida Hasnur SafiiRoslan SaubRathna Devi VaithilingamNor Adinar Baharuddin2024-05-282024-05-2820211472-683110.1186/s12903-021-01540-0https://bmcoralhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12903-021-01540-0https://oarep.usim.edu.my/handle/123456789/4471BMC Oral Health volume 21, Article number: 169 (2021)Background: The influence of scaler tip design on root surface roughness, tooth substance loss and patients' pain perception is investigated. Methods: This article was divided into the following parts: Part 1 Surface roughness and substance loss: an in vitro study, which involves intact extracted teeth sectioned and treated using a piezoelectric ultrasonic device (PM200 EMS Piezon, Switzerland) with a conventional scaler tip (FS-407) and a Perio Slim (PS) scaler tip (Perio Slim DS-016A). All sectioned samples for tooth surface roughness (n=20) and tooth substance loss (n=46) analyses were measured and compared using a 3D surface texture analyser and scanning electron microscope (SEM) respectively, at baseline and following scaling. Part 2 Pain Perception: a clinical study, which was a split-mouth study design including 30 participants with gingivitis and/or mild chronic periodontitis; treated with supra-gingival scaling from teeth #13 to #23. Subjects were randomised to group A or group B. Group A was treated first with PS scaler tips, whereas group B was treated first with conventional scaler tips. Pain perception was recorded using the visual analogue scale (VAS). Results: In vitro study: both scaler tips caused significant reduction in root substance roughness after scaling (p<0.05), but no significant difference between the two scaler tips (p>0.05) was observed. The PS scaler tip caused statistically significantly less root substance loss (p<0.05) when the initial thickness of the tooth was <1000 �m. Clinical study: the participants reported significantly lesser pain score during scaling using the PS scaler tip (median: 3) than when using the conventional scaler tip (median: 5) (p<0.05). Conclusions: In the in vitro study, using a slim scaler tip design causes less tooth substance loss compared to a wider scaler tip design. In the clinical study, less pain was observed compared than a wide (conventional) scaler tip design.enPain perception,Scaler tip design,Tooth surface roughness,Tooth substance loss,Ultrasonic scalerArticle11121169