In vitro efficacy of Er:YAG laser-activated irrigation versus passive ultrasonic irrigation and sonic-powered irrigation for treating multispecies biofilms in artificial grooves and dentinal tubules: an SEM and CLSM study.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateAll experimental protocols received approval from the Ethics Committee of Tianjin Stomatological Hospital (Certificate: PH2021-B-001). All subjects provided informed consent for participating. All participants provided signed informed consent, authorizing the use of their extracted premolars for research purposes. These teeth were extracted due to orthodontic reasons. If the subjects were under 16 years of age, informed consent was obtained from their parents or legal guardians. The authors ensure that all procedures were conducted in line with relevant guidelines and regulations. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding This work was funded by Tianjin Key Medical Discipline (Specialty) Construction Project (TJYXZDXK-078D). This work was also sponsored by Tianjin Health Research Project (TJWJ2021ZD009) and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Oral Functional Reconstruction Scientific Research Project (2021KLMS04)."