Abstract
Objective: The present methodological study tests and compares the bleaching effect of endodontic irrigation solutions upon uniform fabrics. Materials and Methods: precise pieces were cut from a ciel sky blue medical uniform (model 220087, JOCKEY, International. Inc, USA) and placed within a 10-millimeter customized port plate to be tested under a LabScan XE spectrophotometer with illuminant D65 (HunterLab, VA, USA). The L* value was compared for four endodontic solutions at baseline, 5 min, 24 h and 1 week later. These solutions belonged to two major types, sodium hypochlorite and ionized water. Results and discussion. Sodium hypochlorite solutions caused a statistically significant bleaching effect after 5 minutes (P < 0.05), while the ionized water groups produced no bleaching effect at any time (P > 0.05). Conclusions: the proposed methodology has the ability to measure the bleaching effect of some endodontic irrigants on fabrics, yet further investigations are needed to validate it.