Alkasite, Resin Composite, Glass Ionomer and Amalgam: Microleakage After Thermal Cycling

Objectives: This in-vitro study compared the microleakage of Cention N (using bond and no bond) with other restorative materials to evaluate its use as an alternative to other restorative materials.
Methods: Samples were prepared by cutting a 4mm diameter circular Class V at the DEJ of extracted human teeth. At the surface, half of the preparation was in enamel and the other half was cementum. Teeth were randomly assigned to one of 6 groups – see table 1. Materials were placed following manufacturer’s instructions. The root apices of the restored teeth were sealed with wax and all surfaces of the teeth were sealed with nail varnish, up to 1 mm around the margin of the restoration. Teeth were thermal-cycled for 500 cycles between two water baths maintained at 5±1C and 55±1C using a 30 sec soak in each water-bath, and a 10 sec transfer time, following ISO/TS 11405:2015. After thermalcycling, teeth were immediately submerged in 0.2% basic fuchsin dye for 24 hours. After 24 hours, teeth were removed and rinsed with RO water, sliced in half bucco-lingually through the restoration. Samples were polished through P4000 grit paper and microleakage was assessed at ×50 magnification – see figure1. Data were analyzed using ANOVA with post-hoc Tukey to look for significance with α=0.05.
Results: The only significant differences found were on the enamel margin where Group 3 and Group 5 differed, with an adjusted p-value = 0.0317. No differences were detectable on the cementum margin. Interestingly, Group 5 was the only group where differences between enamel and cementum bonding were detected (p = 0.0255).
Conclusions: Cention N performed equally well when compared to amalgam and resin composites with respect to microleakage following thermal cycling. It performed better than the glass ionomer tested in the study.