Curing efficiency and ocular hazards of dental photopolymerization sources.

The spectral distributions of a range of dental photocuring sources were measured at the exit window and at a distance of 10 cm. The former enabled the evaluation of a newly proposed photocuring efficiency index which correlates well with the depth of cure of the photopolymerized resins, thus providing a basis for the comparison of different photocuring sources. The spectral irradiance of the sources obeyed the inverse-square law, allowing a comparison with the ACGIH threshold limit values. According to these criteria, no ocular hazard is posed to the patient or clinician by u.v.-A or u.v.-B radiation nor to the patient by the visible light when momentarily exposed to the sources. Similarly the ACGIH criterion indicates that the clinician does not risk chorioretinal injury provided the exposure is restricted to less than 140 s in a 3 h period.