545 - Effect of Curing Process of Flowable and Packable Composite on Microleakage in Class II Restorations

Purpose: When restoring class II preparations on primary molars, techniques differ between practitioners on whether the flowable composite is pre-cured before placing packable composite or if both flowable and packable composite are co-cured together. These two techniques will potentially result in a significant difference in microleakage effects and, thus, the ultimate success of the restoration. The purpose of this study was to compare the amount of microleakage present in class II preparations that were restored with pre-cured flowable composite under packable composite versus simultaneously co-cured flowable and packable composites.

Methods: Sixty de-identified caries-free extracted molars were prepped with class II box-only cavity preparations. The teeth were randomly divided into two groups and filled with one of the two techniques following standard restoration criteria. Each tooth then went through a thermocycling process, was placed in basic fuchsin dye, and then sectioned to evaluate the degree of cervical microleakage under a stereomicroscope. Cervical microleakage was graded based on the degree of dye penetration, and the differences between the two timing processes were determined via proper statistical analysis.

Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the degree of microleakage between group 1 and group 2.

Conclusions: Pre-curing flowable composite before placement of packable composite resulted in less microleakage when compared to co-curing flowable composite and packable composite together.


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Research supported by Louisiana State University School of Dentistry.