Wear assessment of high viscosity and conventional composite restorative materials

Newer composite restoratives used in the posterior dentition are marketed a s high viscosity, condensable or packable materials. The in-vitro wear char acteristics of three newer generation materials were compared to three conv entional hybrid composites. Specimens were subjected to wear in a Leinfelde r wear simulator equipped with a conical stylus tip to simulate localized w ear. Using surface profilometry, computer generated surface maps were analy zed to determine both volumetric loss and maximum depth of wear facets for the materials tested. Volume loss (mms) was as follows: Z100 - 0.010 +/- 0. 003; SureFil - 0.014 +/- 0.004; Alert 0.016 +/- 0.005; Spectrum TPH - 0.042 +/- 0.003; Prodigy - 0.055 +/- 0.005; Solitaire - 0.062 +/- 0.008. Maximum depth of the wear facets (mm) was as follows: Z100 - 69.2 +/- 8.8; Alert 8 0.9 +/- 15.4; SureFil - 82.6 +/- 11.4; Spectrum TPH - 125.2 +/- 15.4; Solit aire - 159.2 +/- 14.9; Prodigy - 162.9 +/- 22.2. The results of this study indicate that there are significant differences in the wear rates of compos ite materials. However, there was no clear trend that the newer high viscos ity composites exhibited superior wear characteristics when compared to con ventional composites.