Welcome. Congratulations on taking an important step towards improving your practice by using the Bioclear Method, a revolutionary approach to restorative dentistry. The difference you’ll make for your patients can be life changing.

As you move forward, we want you to understand why the Bioclear Method uses 3M materials to help optimize results.

We believe any change in your practice should be kept as simple as possible. That’s why there are just five primary 3M products used in the Bioclear Method, all scientifically proven to elevate procedures and results.

3M Filtek Supreme Ultra Universal Restorative and 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative are used for anterior restorations. They’re color coded blue, so they work together in the anterior.

3M Filtek One Bulk Fill Restorative and 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable work together for posterior restorations. They’re color coded green as perfect partners for posterior restorations. Blue is for beautiful anterior restorations, and green is for great posterior results. It’s that easy.

With all 3M composites, 3M Scotchbond Universal Plus Adhesive is recommended. That’s the five product lineup for success with the Bioclear Method. Our learning modules will help you see why 3M materials were chosen for the Bioclear Method. We’ll also explain how they’ve been validated through more than five years of extensive scientific studies.

This module will help you understand why 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative is used for anterior restorations using the Bioclear Method.

We’ll give a brief product description, then you’ll hear from Dr. Charlie Regalado about his experience using this restorative and the Bioclear Method.

3M Chemist and Product Development Specialist Tim Dunbar will discuss its science-based benefits and the studies that back them up. Travis Schwalbach, one of 3M’s Manufacturing Technology Specialists, will go over the innovative dispensing system created to reduce bubbles and waste.

Finally, we’ll look at some tips for incorporating 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative into the Bioclear method at your practice. OK. Let’s get started. 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable’s 12 shades are designed to match 3M Filtek Supreme Ultra Universal Restorative and the VITA Shade Guide.

Created with true patented nanotechnology, its nanoparticles are more uniform in size for excellent wear resistance and polish retention. These attributes make 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative perfect for anterior restorations where aesthetics are vitally important.

What’s new and better about 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative is the new and improved proprietary delivery system only available from 3M. The new design means virtually no bubbles. Why? Two reasons. A new syringe and a new tip design.

The new syringe has specially designed channels at the back of the syringe to release unwanted air.

As you know, bubbles in flowable restoratives can lead to poor aesthetic outcomes, unhappy patients, and time spent repairing after curing.

The other reason the 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative design prevents air bubbles is the new tip. Its smooth inner design helps to avoid air entrapment. This pre-bent and easily bendable tip resists kinking, and improves access to hard-to-reach areas.

The new ergonomic design is easier on your hands too, because the plunger surface area is larger. Hand pressure is reduced by 58%. The visual indicator means you’ll always know how much material is left in the syringe. And it’s no roll design also means the syringe will stay put in your tray or counter.

3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative was also selected for the Bioclear Method because it is safe to warm, very important for injection molding and to lower extrusion force. Extensive testing has shown that after warming, 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative’s physical properties remain unchanged.

In fact, 3M offers the first dental composite cleared by the FDA for warming, which was 3M Filtek Universal Restorative in capsules. Warming composite materials significantly reduces extrusion force, and makes the restorative more fluid.

Composites that are more fluid are easier to injection mold.

Excellent. Now let’s hear from the experts. Dr. Charlie Regalado, Dr. Tim Dunbar, 3M Senior Product Development Specialist, and Travis Schwalbach, one of 3M’s Manufacturing Technology Specialists. Welcome to all of you. Let’s start by talking with Dr. Regalado about the implications of bubbles in anterior injection molded restorations. Can you tell us why they’re so important to avoid?

In anterior injection molded restorations, it is so critical to not have blemishes in the final result. And that’s what bubbles are. They’re blemishes in our composite, and there’s not a dentist anywhere who would accept that. And especially the patients aren’t going to accept it either.

And often they show up in the heat of the moment you’re just about getting done with your restoration, and you start to see these white spots or dark spots in your composite that you’re polishing. And it’s not an easy fix. You have to take a lot of time to do that.

So we really need to avoid bubbles as much as possible. If they don’t show up at that appointment, they’re going to show up later anyway. And that’s going to make the patient not happy with the final result, and it might even reflect poorly on the dentist themselves who are just trying to do their best. Ideally, I’d like to have zero bubbles in my composite. I will take as minimal as possible. That would make me very happy.

Thanks for those insights. Now Travis, what can you tell us about the improvements made to the dispensing system? And how they help prevent bubbles?

Here at 3M, one thing we pride ourselves on is listening to our customers, taking their feedback, and improving upon our products. Something we heard over and over again from clinicians such as yourself is how problematic bubbles are in flowable materials.

So we took it upon ourselves to improve our delivery system by recreating a system that reduces bubbles and waste, provides a bendable cannula that can be easily manipulated with your fingers, providing a volumetric material gauge in our two-tone plunger, and improving the ergonomics of the device to make it much more comfortable to hold and inject material.

As a clinician and user of flowable products, you’ve likely experienced bubbles in one form or another. One way you’ve probably experienced them is by the audible popping noise you can hear as they’re dispensing out of the tip. Another way you might experience them is visually as you are looking at your restoration after dispensing material.

The original syringe design created air within the system during the filling process when the pocket of air isn’t trapped within the system near the O-ring. As you dispense material, this pocket of air will break up into smaller bubbles, which can come out of the dispensing tip and into the restoration.

The pocket of air can also hang near the O-ring, and that is problematic because it acts as a compression spring. And once you’re done applying pressure to the syringe, it allows material to advance out of the tip as it’s laying on the surface. This is what we call the oozing effect, which is wasteful and messy.

Our new syringe uses a vented plunger design that has a small channel, which allows air to evacuate out of the backside of the plunger before filling occurs. This provides a nice clean filled syringe with little to no air. And eliminates the breaking up of that bubble into smaller bubbles coming out of the dispensing tip, and also alleviates the oozing effect by not having a compression spring. So once you’re done applying pressure, the material stops flowing.

Sticking with the theme of bubble reduction, let’s talk about our new tip. On the left, you can see the original tip. It has sharp angles, which are perfect places for bubbles to hang out. As flowable material passes those bubbles by, they break off. And smaller bubbles come out of the cannula and into your restoration.

On the right hand side, you’ll see our new tip. It’s got a streamlined conical design, which allows for the paste flow front to push all the air out of the cannula prior to dispensing, which helps to virtually eliminate the presence of bubbles inside of your restoration.

We’ve also introduced a pre-bent, but bendable cannula, which allows for dentists and clinicians to bend the cannula to any desired angle up to 90 degrees without kinking, and improves access hard-to-reach areas.

Another thing that stuck out to us during the voice of customer sessions is the inconvenience of being handed a syringe that is empty or nearly empty. To solve this issue, we created a two-tone plunger, which can volumetric show the amount of material remaining within the device. When the colored portion of the syringe is no longer visible, there’s no longer any material within the syringe. It’s very simple.

We also took the opportunity to create a “no roll” feature, meaning that the finger plate and back plunger are triangular, such that it prevents the opportunity for the syringe to roll off of a setup tray or countertop. As a clinician and user of our products day in and day out multiple times per day, we understand that product identification, as well as ergonomics are of the utmost importance.

To improve our identification, we added shade ID markings on the top surface of the plunger. This allows for our products to be easily identifiable, whether stored vertically or horizontally. For ergonomics, we increased the surface area of the plunger, and added a dimple feature for easy thumb placement.

This increase in surface area results in approximately 58% reduction of the force exerted by the palm of your hand or the thumb during application. With these improvements, we are confident that you will find our products easy to identify, and friendly to your hands.

Thanks, Travis. Now Dr. Regalado, we know that composite warming is an important aspect of the Bioclear Method. Do you feel confident that 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative is safe to warm an injection mold using the Bioclear Method?

I am extremely confident that I can heat 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative. And the reason why I know that is because I know 3M has put a lot of research into testing their products, heating it and reheating it several times over and over. That’s really comforting to me. And it needs to be safe on several fronts, if you think about it.

They needs to be safe for the patient, they’re right there, it has to be safe for me and my staff, and it needs to be safe for the product itself. And that’s the most exciting part for me, because I need to know that the properties are going to be unchanged. I know I need to know it’s going to be strong whether it’s heated or not heated. Injection molding we’re heating, and the confidence I get with 3M has changed everything for me.

Thank you, Dr. Regalado. Tim, what scientific evidence is there that this material is safe to warm?

There are actually three reasons why you should warm your composite. The first is that warm composites are fluid and handle more easily. The second is that warming lowers the extrusion force. On the right hand side of the slide, you see some of the testing we’ve done at 3M to quantify this amount of lowering of the extrusion force.

But what this means for you as a practitioner is that the composite can come out of the capsule or syringe more easily, and this leads to less hand fatigue for you as you’re placing composites. The final reason, kind of my favorite, warming may improve the adaptation of the composite to the tooth structure.

The five products on the left of the slide show the five 3M composites that can be safely warmed. On the right hand side of the slide, we see the science of safety, that is the rigorous testing that we’ve done at 3M to show that warmed filtek composites are safe for clinicians and patients.

In our testing at 3M, we’ve examined whether warming changes the physical properties of our composites. In particular, this slide shows how we’ve tested diametral tensile strength, flexural strength, depth of cure, and color among a variety of other properties to determine if warming changes them or not.

Our conclusion is that 3M Filtek restoratives have the same physical properties when used warmed or at room temperature. For you as a clinician, this gives you reassurance that warming will not harm your restorations. So when you’re doing injection molding using warmed composite in the Bioclear method, how do you know that the flowable is really cured beneath the universal or bulk fill that you’ve placed on top of it?

We wondered that question also at 3M, and we tested it thoroughly to prove to ourselves, and to prove to you that flowables really can be cured underneath universals and bulk fills. The graph at the right shows our results that flowable can be sufficiently cured beneath a layer of other composite.

So you may be wondering, when you’re doing the injection molding technique using a layer of uncured adhesive, is the composite really bonded to the tooth with the same strength as some of the more traditional methods of bonding composite to tooth?

We’ve tested this extensively at 3M. Our results are on the right hand side of the slide. And our results tell us that there’s no statistical difference in shear bond strength when using cured versus cured plus and an uncured layer of adhesive in the universal composite injection molding technique.

Excellent. Last question for Dr Regalado. When working on anterior teeth, how important is it that 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative shades match the Filtek Supreme Ultra Universal Restorative shades when injection molding?

Dentists are always going to demand that the flowable composite is going to match the main body shade that you’ve chosen for that patient. It just goes without saying. So in injection molding, the very first composite that’s going to go in and around that tooth, an injection mold– when you’re injecting it is the flowable composite, followed by the main body shade. So they have to match. They must match.

If you think about it, they didn’t, you’d kind of get a strange kind of maybe a swirling shade effect in your final restoration. That just can’t be. And in addition to that, as we know when you’re working with composites, there’s many times you have to make some additions. You have to make maybe some minor corrections. So you have to have the flowable composite match the body shade exactly. And that’s what I get with the Filtek Supreme Restorative Flowable, and that’s why I love it.

Thank you, doctor. Now let’s get an inside the lab perspective on color matching from 3M Chemist Tim Dunbar. Working on the anterior, aesthetics are so important. How can we be sure of color matching? Not only with the tooth, but also between the flowable and the paste?

In the Bioclear Method, it’s important that the shade of the flowable match the shade of the universal composite. We do this at 3M with matching 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative to 3M Filtek Supreme Ultra Universal Restorative. And as a bonus, these two composites shade-wise also match the often used VITA classical shade guide.

Now let’s wrap things up with some chair side tips for when you’re using the Bioclear method and 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative in your practice.

Meet Daley Williams. She provides chair side support for restorations placed using the Bioclear Method. So she knows her stuff. Welcome, Daley. What advice can you give us about smooth and successful practice integration?

Hello, and thanks for the introduction. 3M Filtek Flowables are a critical component of injection molding, because they act as a wetting agent to adapt the composite both to the matrix and to the tooth. So if you’re using the Bioclear Method, these should not be left out of your integration plans.

The syringe was designed to virtually eliminate bubbles that otherwise require time-consuming removal or repair. In addition to these clinical benefits, 3M has included some innovative design features to make your life easier. For example, 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative has an ergonomic plunger that reduces hand fatigue.

An ergonomic design is important since we use flowable every time we injection mold filtek composite. You’ll also notice the addition of a triangular finger plate that’s both comfortable to hold, and contributes to the no roll design, keeping the syringe where it should be, on the tray or on the counter, rather than on the floor.

Have you ever had the embarrassing experience of handing a doctor an empty syringe? I know I have. The new blue barrel on the Filtek Supreme Flowable syringe is your visual indicator. When only the white plunger can be seen, you that the syringe is empty.

The syringe also has a pre-bent tip that offers a good general access angle. But for those hard-to-reach areas, you can use your fingers to bend the cannula farther to get the tip where you need it to go.

You’ll notice there are two different tips for the green and blue flowables. The gray, 20 gauge tip was designed for the blue syringe. The green, 19 gauge tip is meant for the green bulk fill flowable. However, the tips are interchangeable.

So if you need a different sized tip on one of the flowables, you can easily exchange them, but be aware that the required extrusion force will go up if you use the gray tip on the green syringe. All of these clinical and design features add up to an improved overall flowable experience. Warming your flowable and composite may be new to you. So here are some important do’s and don’ts.

Place the flowable and composite into the heat sink warmer five minutes before the procedure to allow it to warm. Testing has shown that you can warm the flowable restorative up to 70 degrees Celsius, 158 degrees Fahrenheit for up to one hour up to 20 times.

The heat stability of the flowable is useful for your practice since the syringe contains enough flowable to often be used in multiple procedures. Only use approved devices that have been tested for safety and efficacy when warming select Filtek Restoratives.

It’s not safe to heat your materials using unapproved methods. No light bulbs, microwaves, mug warmers, or other unapproved heating devices to heat your flowable and composite. Remember that during curing, the output of your light is as critical as your technique.

Light-curing is something you might not think about too much because you do it every day. However, the material properties and color stability of the composites you’re placing may be compromised if they’re not adequately cured.

To help you cure with confidence, and make sure the output is adequate, you can arrange to have a 3M rep test your curing light with the checkmark system. They can also give you tips on your curing technique if you have questions.

Wear eye protection during curing. Orange goggles filter out blue light, and allow you to pay close attention during the curing process, so that you can accurately direct the light where it’s needed to ensure strong, long lasting results.

While we’re talking about light-curing, do be sure to follow the instructions for use for both the depth of cure, and the curing time of the composites you’re using. And remember, curing times vary depending on the shade of the composite you’re using. Generally speaking, the darker the shade, the more additional curing time is required.

After the critical light-curing step, you’re ready to finish and polish the restoration using the Bioclear Method steps, which goes as follows. Step 1, contour the teeth using 3M Sof-Lex extra-thin contouring and polishing disks. Step 2, floss the interproximal areas. Step 3, finish the restoration using the Bioclear magic mix pre-polishing paste and cup, followed by step 4, the final polishing using the diamond impregnated rock star polisher.

Thanks for learning about 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative, and why it is the composite of choice for anterior restorations using the Bioclear Method. Please assign this module to your staff members in Bioclear Expand. To learn more, go to 3M.com/Bioclear.