In-Vitro Wear of a Heat Cured Indirect Composite Resin

Objective: Much of the clinical success of Belleglass^TM Indirect Resin has been attributed to its curing parameters (high temperature, 135°C; under Nitrogen pressure, 45 psi), which results in a high degree of resin polymerization and improved physical properties. It was previously reported that these physical properties were not significantly affected when Belleglass^TM was cured by heat alone ( IADR Abst # 374, 2006).   In this study, the in-vitro wear of the Next Generation, Belleglass NG^TM (BGNG) was evaluated when cured by heat (135ºC) with and without Nitrogen pressure.

Method:  The in-vitro wear test method was previously reported  (IADR Abst # 482, 1998).    Samples (3) of BGNG Enamel (EN) and Translucent Dentin (TD) were cured 10 min.@ 135ºC, with and without Nitrogen Pressure (45 psi) and stored for 2 weeks in 37ºC water prior to testing.  They were subjected to soft, third-body wear for 250K cycles in a 50% aqueous slurry of PMMA beads.   The mean wear was calculated and the data analyzed by Anova (p<0.05)  to determine any significance between the means. 

Results:  The data are reported in the attached table.  The in-vitro wear of BGNG (EN) and (TD) were slightly higher in value, but not statistically different when cured without Nitrogen pressure versus curing with Nitrogen pressure. 

Mean Wear (s.d.) of BGNG, cc/cycle x 10^-9

* Means with the same letter within the same colunm are not statistically different at p<0.05

Conclusion:  In-vitro wear of Belleglass Next Generation (BGNG) was not significantly different when cured with or without Nitrogen pressure.