الفهرس 
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Abstract
Dental caries is a disease characterized by loss of minerals from dental hard tissues of the tooth due to fall in the pH or gaining of acidity formed by action of cariogenic bacteria on fermentable sugars inside the oral cavity. The first sign for caries is called the incipient lesion and appeared at the surface of the enamel as it is the most superficial hard tissue of the tooth
One of the major factors to prevent caries is to retrieve the mineral loss as early as possible through an internal source, which is natural saliva, or an external sources as artificial saliva, available re-mineralising agents and natural agents. All those sources have minerals to supply the hard tissues of the tooth to compensate for this mineral loss.
The aim of the present study was to compare the effect of a natural agent called Green Tea Extract (GTE) and a synthetic re-mineralising agent called Casein Phosphopeptide Amorphous Calcium Phosphorus fluoride (CPP-ACPF) in treatment of incipient caries in primary teeth through scanning electron microscope and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (SEM_EDX)
Thirty enamel specimens were prepared from freshly extracted or exfoliated human primary molars teeth. Crowns were separated from the root at 2 mm apical to the CEJ, then were sectioned mesiodistally to produce two equal sections, one lingual and one buccal and finally the enamel specimens were ground flat with the use of wet waterproof fine silicone-carbide abrasive paper and mounted with epoxy resin with their outer surfaces exposed for testing. Adhesive taps measuring 3×3 was fixed to the outer surfaces of the enamel specimens, then 2 layers of nail varnish were painted over the surfaces to standardize the area of treatment and evaluation. All the enamel specimens had been scanned by (SEM_EDX) as a baseline recordings.
All the enamel specimens were subjected to de-mineralisation, then scanned again by (SEM_EDX), as a post de-mineralisation recordings then they assigned a numerical denotation (1–30) and were randomly allocated into two groups (15 each) by computer generated block randomization, as following:
group I: consisted of 15 enamel specimens that were subjected to solution for remineralisation and then submitted to pH cycling with application of (CPP-ACPF) paste for three times for one minute each time, before the 1st and 2nd de-mineralising cycle and after the 2nd de-mineralising cycle.
group II: consisted of 15 enamel specimens that were subjected to solution for remineralisation and then submitted to pH cycling with immersion in the green tea solution of (GTE) for three times for one minute each time, before the 1st and 2nd de-mineralising cycle and after the 2nd de-mineralising cycle.
All the enamel specimens of both groups were scanned by (SEM_EDX) as a post remineralisation recordings.
Environmental SEM. (Quanta 250 FEG, FEI Company, Netherlands) was used to record the quantitative aspect of this study in the form of mineral analyses of enamel surface particularly for phosphorus and calcium elements, and it were also used to record the qualitative aspect of this study in the form of images of the enamel surface at two different magnification (1000x and 2000x).
The results showed that:
1- The surface minerals content for both calcium and phosphorus showed significant decrease from baseline after demineralisation cycle (p<0.05) and increase after remineralisation (p<0.05) but not reach to the baseline level
2- There was statistically significant higher mean p mass% values for Ca and P in group treated by CPP-ACPF than GTE group after remineralisation cycle. For calcium where (p<0.001).
3- Surface topography using E-SEM showed improvement in the enamel appearance and the surface became smooth after remineralisation with both of CPP-ACPF and green tea extract.