Abstract
Introduction: Dental caries considered to be a multifactorial disease requires meticulous management and prevention. For prevention the most successful and commonly used agent is fluoride and if applied topically by means of APF gel it has a success rate of around 60%.
 Aims and objectives: To evaluate and compare the micro hardness of the restorative materials after the application of APF gel. To evaluate the effect of topical fluoride on the micro hardness of various restorative materials using universal testing machine as well as to compare the micro hardness of the restorative materials after the application of APF gel.
 Materials and methods: 80 standardized restorative pellets made with various restorative materials constituted the sample size for the evaluation of micro hardness with and without the application of APF gel on the prepared restorative pellets. The prepared 80 molds were equally distributed for the preparation of 20 restorative pellets of four restorative materials each (viz.) Glass Ionomer Cement, Zirconomer, Amalgomer, Cention-N. Out of 20 samples prepared 10 samples were considered as control, which were tested without the application of APF gel. While 10 samples were taken as experimental, which were conditioned with APF gel before the test.
 Results: The result of the microhardness test after the application of fluoride gel showed that the highest microhardess was shown by Group III Amalgomer CR with mean 52.62 ± 0.65. The other materials in the order of decreasing hardness were Group IV Cention N 50.52 ± 0.69, Group II Zirconomer 46.80 ± 0.68 and least for Group I conventional Gic 43.38 ± 0.53. The percentage reduction of micro hardness after application of APF gel was recorded highest in GIC type IX followed by Amalgomer CR, Cention N and Zirconomer. Zirconomer has the least percentage reduction of micro hardness after application of APF gel amongst all the restorative materials.
 Keywords: APF gel, Amalgomer CR, Cention N, micro hardness, topical fluoride, Zirconomer.
Highlights
Dental caries is the most prevalent oral disease in the world population with a prevalence of 49-83% in the world and 84-85% in India. 1 Restoring carious teeth is one of the major treatment needs of young children but it is always beneficial to prevent the carious lesion at its earliest stage and for prevention the most successful and commonly used agent is topical fluoride
The prepared eighty restorative material pellets were obtained from four groups, each having 20 pellets in number namely Group I (Glass Ionomer Cement type IX ), Group II (Zirconomer), Group III (Amalgomer CR), Group IV (Cention-N) and color coded with green, violet, orange and yellow respectively
It was noted that the mean micro hardness before and after the application of APF gel of GIC IX (Group I) was 45.11 ± 0.40 and 43.38± 0.53 respectively, Zirconomer (Group II) was 47.77 ± 0.41and 46.80± 0.68 respectively, while that of Amalgomer CR (Group III) was 54.55 ± 0.45 and 52.62± 0.65 respectively followed by Cention N (Group IV) where it was 52.06 ± 00.45 and 50.52 ± 0.69 respectively (Table 1, Graph 1)
Summary
Dental caries is the most prevalent oral disease in the world population with a prevalence of 49-83% in the world and 84-85% in India. 1 Restoring carious teeth is one of the major treatment needs of young children but it is always beneficial to prevent the carious lesion at its earliest stage and for prevention the most successful and commonly used agent is topical fluoride. Materials like Glass Ionomer Cements has been extensively used as restorative materials in the primary dentition because of their aesthetics, biocompatibility, ability to release fluoride, rechargeability, and chemical bonding to enamel and dentine. Since its inception in 1960 by Kent and Wilson Glass Ionomer cement has gained success as a restorative, luting as well as lining material in pediatric dentistry.[2] It has been widely used in dentistry to have long-term durability in the oral cavity and be an excellent barrier against caries. One of the major drawbacks of conventional GIC is its weak mechanical properties like brittleness, low strength, and toughness. In recent times materials with increased strength than GIC but retaining the features like esthetics, anti-cariogenic potential and chemo-mechanical attachment with tooth structure has been into practice
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