Self-Healing Dental Resin Versus a Flowable Restorative: a Pilot Study

Objectives: This study compared the basic physical properties of a newly developed self-healing composite with a conventional flowable restorative material.
Methods: A light cured, dental resin composite (control) was formulated from 35%wt. resin mixture of bisphenol A diglycidyl ether dimethacrylate, triethylene glycol dimethacrylate, and a tertiary amine and camphorquinone and then mixed with 65%wt. of silane treated inorganic glass filler (ESSTECH Inc). A self-healing dental resin composite was formulated from the control composite plus 10%wt. of nano-capsules containing healing agent 1,6-heaxadecanediol dimethacrylate. Filtek Supreme Flowable (FSF, 3M ESPE) was included as a predicate in this study. Physical properties such as compressive strength, flexural strength and modulus, depth of cure, degree of conversion, Knoop hardness, water sorption and solubility, fatigue ratio, and radio-opacity were measured. Fatigue survival was implemented, where compressive force applied to cured specimens (25x4x4 mm, n=20) up to 12,000 cycles or until sample fracture.
Results: Significant difference were found between the groups per property (p<0.05). Table 1. Physical and mechanical properties of the FSF, control and self-healing dental resin composites
Conclusions: For all other physical properties except flexural strength and fatigue ratio, self-healing composite performed similarly with FSF. Self-healing composite with its ability to recover has shown a 30% greater fatigue ratio than FSF (P=0.0036).