Farhan Raza Khan, Ashar Jamille, Fahad Umer, Syed Sheeraz Hussain.
A Survey of the Composite Curing Units Used in the Dental Institutions of Karachi, Pakistan.
J Pak Dent Assoc Jan ;20(4):222-5.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the light intensity output of the composite curing units used in the dental institutions of Karachi. METHODOLOGY It was a cross sectional study in which a total of 29 halogen composite curing units were examined. The light intensity output was measured using Cure-Rite meter. A cut off of 300mW/cm was taken as adequate light output.ANOVAandKruskal-Wallis testwere applied.Level of significancewas kept at 0.05. RESULTS The mean light output intensity was 345.2 mW/cm (SD 251.1 mW/cm ). Out of 18 units at undergraduate institutions, 11 had poor light output while 3 out of 11 at postgraduate institutions had poor light output.The condition of light cure unit’s casing had a significant associationwith the light output (p-value of 0.011). CONCLUSIONS About half of the curing units at the dental institutions have poor light intensity output which may result in an inadequate quality of dental service.This is an alarming situation for the clinicians.Asmishandling of the equipment is a leading cause of its poor performance, the external casing of the light cure unit can be taken as a proxy for its light output.

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