Tube-shaped nanostructures for enhancing resin-based dental materials: A landscape of evidence and research advancement

With the advent of nanotechnology, incorporating nanoscale fillers in dental resins seems promising to improve therapeutic features and provide more excellent physicochemical properties for dental materials. The use of nanotubes has been raised due to their excellent mechanical properties, carry and delivery of drugs capabilities, and bioactive properties. These features depend on the composition of nanotubes and their application. This scoping review aims to describe previous studies about incorporating nanotubes in restorative resin-based materials. The main goals here addresses are: (1) to identify which are the most used nanotubes in the development of these dental materials; (2) to verify which the molecules/particles associated with these nanotubes; (3) to report the objectives of the incorporation of nanotubes to these dental materials and main results. The searches were performed using PubMed and Scopus databases in December 2022, identifying 534 manuscripts. After the selection process, 43 studies were included in the review. We mainly analyzed and discussed the nanotubes' composition, the parental materials in which the nanotubes were incorporated, the purposes of adding these particles to the dental materials, how the materials were analyzed, and the primary studies' outcomes. The outcomes are stimulating and reveal a promising advance in dental resins with the possibility of improving the maintenance of restorations and patients' quality of life. Further studies should address the abovementioned topics to expand the understanding and options of using nanotubes in resin-based restorative materials.