Translucency of Current CAD/CAM Monolithic Restorative Materials

Objectives: As a result of increased aesthetic requirements with the continuously improving CAD/CAM technology, a large variety of aesthetic restorative materials including monolithic restorations have been developed. Translucency makes restoration appear more natural and is described as one of the primary factors in controlling aesthetics, therefore translucency is crucial for monolithic restorations. However, there is a limited information about the translucency of current monolithic CAD / CAM materials in the literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate the translucency of recently developed monolithic CAD/CAM materials.
Methods: A total of 105 rectangular-shaped specimens of A2 shade were fabricated from Vita Enamic, Vita Mark II, Vita Suprinity, Lava Ultimate, IPS e.max CAD, GC Cerasmart and Prettau Anterior blocks (n=15) and polished to 0.5±0.01 mm in thickness. A spectrophotometer (VITA Easyshade Compact) was used to measure the CIE L*a*b* color coordinates of all specimens. Translucency parameter (TP) and contrast ratio (CR) values were calculated. Data were statistically analyzed using one-way ANOVA and Tukey HSD test. The relationship between the TP and CR of each material was evaluated using Pearson’s correlation (p<0.05).
Results: TP and CR values were varied from 16.06 to 31.16 and from 0.38 to 0.62, respectively. All groups significantly indicated different translucency values from each other, except the difference between Vita Mark II and Lava Ultimate. GC Cerasmart showed more translucency than the other groups; on the other hand, Prettau Anterior showed lower translucency values than the other groups.
Conclusions: The influence of material type on the translucency of monolithic restorations was investigated in this study. The translucency was affected by the material type. For all materials, a strong correlation between CR and TP was found.