Dentistry

Abstract

How Do Dental Materials React On Tooth brushing?

Georg Tellefsen, Anders Liljeborg and Gunnar Johannsen

Background: Novel dental materials have created the need for new knowledge, in terms of abrasion both in a quantitative, i.e. how much of the surface that has been abraded as well as in a qualitative way, i.e. the roughness of the surface after brushing. Furthermore, the development of new measuring techniques has created a new interest in this type of research.

Objective: To investigate if and how, different filling-materials and an acrylic are affected by brushing with and without tooth pastes.

Methods: The following dental materials were used: a cold cured acrylic, a flow composite and three different hybrid composites. The specimens were attached to acrylic plates and were exposed to brushing in a brushing machine using water alone and two different toothpastes: a low abrasive toothpaste and a whitening toothpaste. After one and six hours of brushing the results were evaluated using a profilometer. A surface roughness value (Ra-value) was calculated from the profilometer measurements for each material.

Results: Brushing with water alone caused negligible abrasion. There was a clear difference in abrasivity between the two toothpastes. Brushing with Pepsodent Whitening® resulted in a rougher surface than after brushing with Colgate Smiles®.

Conclusions: The present study has shown that toothpaste is needed to create a significant abrasion on dental materials. Most materials exhibited a rougher surface after six hours of brushing than after one hour, however some of the materials obtained a smoother surface indicating a polishing effect between one and six hours of brushing. The surface roughness was dependent on the type of toothpaste used.