Comparison of the marginal microleakage of a bioactive composite resin and traditional dental restorative materials.
Abisoluwa Adeyeye, Valerie Spivey, Dan Stoeckel, Danny R. Welch
Abstract
The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the marginal microleakage of Activa Kids BioActive-Restorative used with an adhesive bonding agent (AB+) and compare it with the microleakage of a traditional composite resin (CR), a resin-modified glass ionomer cement (RMGIC), and Activa Kids BioActive-Restorative placed without the use of an adhesive bonding agent (AB-). Standard Class I cavities were prepared in 200 extracted, caries-free permanent molars, which were then restored with 1 of the 4 restorative materials (n = 50 each). The restored teeth were thermocycled for 500 cycles, alternating between 5°C and 55°C with a dwell time of 25 seconds; stained with basic fuchsin dye with a soak time of 24 hours; and sectioned buccolingually. Microleakage was assessed independently by 2 evaluators who viewed specimens under a dissecting microscope at ×30 magnification and assigned scores according to a standardized microleakage scale. Because a Spearman correlation test showed a high correlation between the scores assigned by the 2 evaluators, their ratings for each of the 4 test groups were pooled, and a modified Wilcoxon rank sum test (P < 0.05) was used to analyze the microleakage scores. No difference in microleakage was observed between the AB+ and CR groups (P = 0.8652). Statistically significant differences in microleakage were observed between the AB+ and RMGIC groups (P < 0.0001) as well as between the AB+ and AB- groups (P = 0.0324). The results showed that AB+ had a mean microleakage rate comparable to that of traditional CR. Moreover, AB+ exhibited a lower mean microleakage rate than RMGIC; both the bioactive composite resin and RMGIC are fluoride-releasing materials, so clinicians should consider using AB+, especially in high-caries-risk patients, who are vulnerable to recurrent caries resulting from microleakage and benefit from fluoride release. In this study, AB+ exhibited a significantly lower mean microleakage rate than AB-; therefore, this bioactive material should be used with a bonding agent.