WEAR PERFORMANCE OF NANO-COMPOSITE ARTIFICIAL DENTURE TEETH

Statement of Problem: Civilizing the wear resistance of artificial denture teeth is of importance to prosthodontic patients, as wear may affect the denture esthetics and functions. To counteract this problem, artificial teeth with increased wear resistance had been introduced in the market.
Aim: The aim of the current study was to compare the amount of wear between nanocomposite and acrylic (PMMA) artificial teeth.
Materials and methods: Ten teeth were fabricated (reproduced) from nanocomposite (Z350) by duplicating one tooth from the ready-made conventional acrylic artificial teeth. Fifteen artificial teeth were chosen from ready-made acrylic resin teeth. Mandibular 1st molars were only chosen for testing. The 2-body wear testing was performed using multi-modal ROBOTA chewing simulator. Test samples were mounted against 600 grit sandpaper and tested under a load of 700 gram for 10,000 cycles of rotation. Height and weight were measured before and after wear test for each specimen to determine the loss in both. Qualitative analysis of the wear areas was completed using USB Digital microscope with a built-in camera connected with an IBM compatible personal computer using a fixed magnification of 25X. Results: It was found that Nano-composite group recorded higher height loss mean value than conventional group height loss mean value. The difference between both groups was statistically non-significant (p>0.05) as indicated by unpaired t-test. Also Nano-composite group recorded higher weight loss mean value than conventional group weight loss mean value. The difference between both groups was statistically non-significant (p>0.05) as indicated by unpaired t-test.
Conclusions: Nano-composite teeth exhibited non-significant higher wear than conventional artificial acrylic teeth.