My son is doing a science fair project. I’m a hygienist and the Dr. I work for has saved some ext teeth for us. He has them soaking in saline right now to preserve them. Project is……What effects do different beverages have on teeth. He will soak them in water, mountain dew, gatorade and milk. Question is this…..wondering if I sterilize them before starting the project if that will change the absorption factor? Any thoughts…..or can you post this to get comments. Thanks!
I did some searching a found that “Autoclaving teeth for preclinical laboratory exercises does not alter their physical properties sufficiently to compromise the learning experience. However, autoclave sterilization of extracted teeth does affect dentinal structure enough to compromise dental materials research.”
http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/faq/extracted_teeth.htm
Here is another link to a study regarding sterilizing and structural changes:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9467308
I hope this helps a bit!