Wear and superficial roughness of glass ionomer cements used as sealants, after simulated toothbrushing Desgaste e rugosidade superficial de cimentos de ionômero de vidro utilizados como selantes, após escovação simulada

AB STRACT: The pur pose of this study was to eval u ate, in vi tro, the prop er ties (wear and rough ness) of glass ionomer ce ments that could in flu ence their in di ca tion as pit and fis sure seal ants. The uti lized ma te ri als were Fuji Plus, Ketac-Mo lar and Vitremer (in two dif fer ent pro por tions: 1:1 and 1⁄4:1). The resin-based seal ant Delton was used as con trol. By means of an elec tronic bal ance (pre ci sion of 10−4 g), wear was mea sured in func tion of weight loss af ter sim u lated toothbrushing. Su per fi cial rough ness was de ter mined by means of a sur face rough ness-mea sur ing ap pa ra tus. The re sults re vealed that di luted Vitremer and Fuji Plus were less re sis tant to toothbrushing abra sion and had the great est in crease in su per fi cial rough ness. Al though in clin i cal sit u a tions luting or di luted ionomer ce ments are of ten uti lized as al ter na tives to resin-based seal ants, the re sults of this study re vealed that the prop er ties of those ce ments are worse than those of re stor ative ionomers, which pre sented re sults sim i lar to those of the eval u ated resin seal ant. DESCRIPTORS: Pit and fis sure seal ants; Den tal res to ra tion wear; Den tal ma te ri als.