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 you know 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 explain why 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable restorative is recommended, along with 3M Filtek One Bulk Fill Restorative for posterior 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 on posterior teeth. 3M Chemist and Product Development Specialist, Dr. Tim Dunbar, will weigh in with 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 chair side tips for incorporating 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative into the Bioclear method at your practice.

OK let’s get started. 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative syringes contain the same great bulk fill flowable material as always, but with a new and improved proprietary delivery system available only from 3M.

What makes this syringe and tip so different?

Let’s start with how it virtually eliminates bubbles. Bubbles may cause back pressure in the syringe, leading to material run on and waste. 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.

The other reason, the new 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative design prevents air bubbles is the new tip. Its smooth inner design helps to avoid air entrapment.

And an easy to bend, pre-bend cannula is also a great feature of this new delivery system. It resists kinking, and improves access to hard-to-reach areas.

Along with excellent adaptation, you can also expect low shrinkage stress, thanks to the monomers used in 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative.

Finally, 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative is safe to warm. Very important for injection molding.

Warming 3M Filtek flowables also significantly reduces extrusion force by making the restorative more fluid.

Warming may also improve adaptation to tooth structure.

Excellent. Now let’s hear from the experts, starting with Dr. Charlie Regalado. Dr. Regalado is a full faculty member at the Bioclear Learning Center. Welcome Dr. Regalado. Let’s start out by talking about the 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative’s new syringe design, and how it helps you in your practice.

The 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable syringe has been a game changer in my practice. For one thing I just want to say I just like the way it fits in my hand. They have a new plunger design. So the end of it is a large triangle, and it actually fits great in the palm of my hand, which makes extrusion force extremely easy, and it won’t rotate unexpectedly.

The other thing I love about it is, it has a color coded plunger. Now one of the things we hate as dentists is not knowing how much material product is in the syringe when it’s handed to us and put into the patient’s tooth. I want to know that I’ve got enough material for the procedure. And that’s what the color coding helps me do. So there’s a couple of great things about it.

Now let’s talk about the fact that the new design minimizes bubbles. I mean, who doesn’t love that. No voids, no bubbles. I couldn’t be happier with that. Now there’s another thing I really love about it and I want to talk about that and that’s the tip. What they’ve done with the tip is they’ve made it a bendable tip. I don’t have to reach for an instrument anymore to give a tip a bend.

Now we know that sometimes access is very difficult in certain parts of the mouth. Maybe patient can open is wide, or are you doing the backend of a molar. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to grab a tip and just bend it any way I want to?

Sometimes it’s fine to have it flat, sometimes I need more of a 90-degree bend. I’ve even been able to turn it into almost a reverse angle. So all that does is mean I’m going to get better flow into my prep, which means better adaptation, a better result. I love the new syringe design.

Thank you for that, Dr. Regalado. Now let’s talk with 3M Manufacturing Technology Specialist, Travis Schwalbach. Travis, can you give us a behind the scenes perspective on the improvements made to the delivery system?

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 creating 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 is entrapped 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 to 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 volume magically 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’re confident that you will find our products much easier to identify and much friendlier to your hands.

Thank you. Now let’s talk about warming this flowable restorative, which is important for injection molding. Dr. Regalado, do you feel confident warming 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative?

I am extremely confident and be able to say that it is safe to warm 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative. And the reason why I’m confident about it is because I know that 3M has invested so heavily in the research to insure me that it is OK to warm their composite.

Now, if you think about it, you really want to have it safe on several fronts. It’s safe to warm for my patients, it’s safe to warm it for me and my dental team. And it’s also safe to warm it for the material itself. We don’t want a composite that’s going to lose its special properties by the act of warming.

3M, I know has done the research. I know it works. And it’s been nothing short of spectacular in my office. So we warm the Filtek Flowable Restorative every time we’re about to use it for every composite procedure.

Now let’s hear from 3M Chemist and Product Development Specialist, Dr. Tim Dunbar. Welcome Tim. We know you’ve done the scientific research on warming this restorative material. What can you tell us?

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.

First the toxicology testing has been done and shown that warming is safe. Second, an extensive literature search and an internal to 3M pulp temperature rise test has shown that minimal heat is transferred to the pulp from a warmed composite.

Third, extensive. Extensive physical property testing has shown that our composites are just as strong when they from a warmed composite as they are from a room temperature composite. 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.

When injection molding posterior restorations, you may wonder, is the adhesive really cured beneath all that bulk fill and bulk fill flowable material? This slide shows the results of our asking that question, and the experiments that we used to answer it.

When you injection mold 3M Filtek One Bulk Fill restorative on top of 3M Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative, you can be confident that the bond strength is every bit as strong as the traditional techniques, as the slide shows.

And our conclusion from this data is that there’s no statistical difference in bond strength when using cured versus using cured plus uncured adhesive in the bulk fill composite injection molding technique.

Thank you, Tim. Very thorough. Finally Dr. Regalado, we want to ask you about using 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative as a wetting agent when injection molding posterior restorations. What is the advantage of this?

The advantage of using Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable composite as a wetting agent really comes down to one word, and that is adaptation. As dentists, we demand that our composite is going to adapt to every part of our prep that we just created.

We can’t afford to see voids and gaps, micro-leakage, and anything that might cause us to have to redo the composite later on. So the wetting agent ability of the bulk fill flowable is critical, in my view, for a really successful composite restoration.

Thank you, Doctor. Now Tim, can you explain the difference between the chemistry and physical properties of 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative for anterior teeth? And 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative for the posterior?

You may be wondering, why do we recommend using one flowable for anterior restorations and another for posterior restorations? The reason is that they’ve been optimized for different things. 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative has been optimized to have a large number of shades, great polish, and great polish retention.

On the other hand, 3M Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative has been optimized to have low polymerization shrinkage stress and 4 millimeter depth of cure. Let’s talk about the chemistry that drives the physical differences between these two flowable composites.

First, for 3M Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative, we use nanotechnology. We use a nano cluster and individual nanoparticles. These give us great strength, great polish, and great polish retention. That is the glossiness of the restoration lasts.

For Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative, we choose an optimized mixture of resins to deliver low polymerization shrinkage stress. And then we pigmented fairly lightly to allow enough light transmission to give you a 4 millimeter depth of cure.

Let’s dive into some of the numbers behind these physical properties for the two flowable materials. Displayed on this chart, we see first cusp deflection. That’s where 3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable really shines. Low cusp deflection means low polymerization shrinkage stress. And what that translates to you as a clinician is that once cured, the composite is pulling on the sides of the cusp less.

Second, both of these composites have good levels of fracture toughness for more life from the composite. Third, our polish retention for Filtek Supreme Flowable Restorative really shines relative to the competitive average. And then finally, for radiopacity, both composites have good radiopacity, but Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative is especially good for those deep posterior restorations.

Now let’s wrap up with some chair side tips for using the Bioclear Method and Filtek Bulk Fill 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 Flowable Restoratives are a critical component of injection molding in the Bioclear Method. And so this product should not be left out of your integration plans. They are essential for injection molding because they act as a wetting agent to adapt the composite both to the matrix and to the tooth.

Furthermore, this syringe was designed to virtually eliminate bubbles that may require time consuming removal or repair. In addition to these clinical benefits, 3M has included some innovative design features to make your life easier.

3M Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative has an ergonomic plunger that reduces hand fatigue. This 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 is 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 green barrel on the Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Syringe is your visual indicator. When only the white plunger can be seen, you know 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 further 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 size tip on one of your flowables, you can easily exchange them, but beware 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 Filtek flowable restorative may be new to you. So here are some important do’s and don’ts. Place the flowables and composite into the heat sink warmer five minutes before the procedure to allow it to warm to 68 degrees Celsius, 155 degrees Fahrenheit. Testing has shown that you can warm the Filtek Bulk Fill Flowable Restorative up to 70 degrees Celsius 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 composites.

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 to 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 Bulk Fill Restorative, and why it is the flowable 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.