A comparative study on the effect of four disinfectant solutions on wettability of three types of elastomeric impression materials with two different immersion time: An in-vitro study

Abstract

Introduction: Infection control is an important concept in the present day practice of dentistry. Elastomeric dental impressions too should be disinfected as per laid down protocols. Recently, vinylsiloxaether type of elastomeric impression material have been introduced which is supposed to have improved hydrophilic properties among others. This invitro study was taken up to compare wettability of vinylsiloxaether impression material in comparison to two other popular traditional elastomeric impression materials i.e polyether and addition silicone. Materials and Methods: An in-vitro study was undertaken to evaluate effect of four recommended commercially available disinfectant solutions on the wettability of three types of elastomeric impression materials at 10 and 30 minutes time intervals. The impression materials evaluated were vinylsiloxaether, addition silicone and polyether. The disinfectants used were 2% glutaraldehyde, 0.5% sodium hypochlorite, 0.05% iodophor and 0.25% benzalkonium chloride. 100 samples of each impression material was made and subjected to 10 different immersion protocols including distill water as control. The surface wettability (contact angle) of all samples was measured using the contact angle analyzer (Digidrop, Contact angle meter, GBX products, France). The data obtained was statistically analyzed. ‘Two-sample t-tests’, ‘two- way- ANOVA’ and ‘tukey simultaneous test’ was applied. Results: The mean contact angle values of addition silicone samples were highest among elastomers followed by polyether and vinylsiloxaether samples. The mean value of contact angles for 30 minutes immersion time interval was highly significant compared to the corresponding values of 10 minutes immersion time interval (P Conclusion: Among the elastomeric impression materials evaluated, wettability wise vinylsiloxaether proved to be the best impression material followed by polyether and addition silicone. Disinfection with 2% glutaraldehyde h