Abstract

Background: Because of the viscoelastic properties of soft liners , these materials will act as a cushion between the denture and the edentulous ridge to lower and redistribute the occlusal forces over the denture bearing area . One of the major problems associated with the soft liner using is the increased risk of invasion of Candida organisms on the soft lined dentures intaglio surface .

Aim: To investigate antifungal effect of incorporation of Chitosan nano – particles into heat cured acrylic based soft lining material .

Methods: Thirty samples were prepared and divided into three groups (control group , 1.5wt% , 2wt% experimental group), ten samples for each group, The sterile soft lining samples were deposited in sterilized tubes containing Sabouraud dextrose broth in which a small portion of the isolated yeast were suspended and incubated for 1 hr. at room temperature. After that , the specimens were removed , rinsed with Phosphate buffered saline , dried then fixed by methanol , stained with crystal violet and examined under inverted light microscope.

Results: The result of adherence test showed a highly significant decrease in the number of Candida cells adhered to soft liner after incorporating 1.5wt% , 2wt% chitosan compared to samples of control group.

Conclusion: Chitosan can be regarded as a strong antifungal material and incorporating the chitosan into soft liner can succeed in producing soft lining material with antifungal activity against Candida micro organsims.

Keywords: Chitosan, Nano-Particles, Denture Lining Material, Candida Albicans Adherence