Wear of conventional and pre-polymerized composite materials under erosive/abrasive conditions

The aim of this study was to examine the wear of three different composite materials usable for vertical bite reconstruction under erosive/abrasive conditions and to compare them with the bovine dental hard tissues enamel and dentin in-vitro. The composite materials Filtek Supreme XTE, CeraSmart and Brilliant Crios and bovine enamel and dentin specimens were evenly allocated to five groups (n=10). Samples were firstly exposed to hydrochloric acid for 1 min, then stored for 30 min in artificial saliva. In the second step, the samples were brushed for 1 min with 100 brushing strokes each and an applied force of 2.5 N in an automated brushing device. After 60 of these erosive/abrasive cycles, wear of the samples was determined by contact profilometry. Filtek Supreme XTE showed significantly less wear (mean ± standard deviation; 0.15 ± 0.11 μm) compared to the other two composite materials (p0.05). No significant difference (p0.05) could be found between CeraSmart (0.25 ± 0.03 μm) and Brilliant Crios (0.24 ± 0.04 μm). The two bovine dental hard tissues, enamel (13.70 ± 0.94 μm) and dentin (50.08 ± 4.46 μm), each showed a significantly higher amount of wear than the three restorative materials (p0.05). In conclusion, this study exhibited that the three composite materials, Filtek Supreme XTE, CeraSmart and Brilliant Crios, were more resistant under erosive/abrasive conditions compared to bovine enamel and bovine dentin, respectively.