Unraveling the Anti-Staining Properties of Dental Resin Cements: a Study with a Newly Developed Universal Resin Cement

Aim This study examines the anti-staining properties of newly developed and existing dual-cure resin cements for prosthetic dental applications.

Materials and Methods To replicate a common inlay restoration, a CAD/CAM inlay was machine-milled from dima Hybrid Resin Blank Plus (Kulzer Japan) for a class II cavity abutment tooth made of i-TFC Core Resin (Sun Medical). The inlay and abutment tooth were then cemented using the new universal resin cement (Kulzer Japan ZEN™ Universal Cement) and five existing resin cements (3M RelyX™ Universal Resin Cement, 3M RelyX™ Unicem 2, Ivoclar Vivadent SpeedCem^® Plus, GC G-CEM ONE™ EM, and Kuraray Noritake Panavia™ SA Cement Universal). Subsequently, the specimens underwent a 24-hour immersion in red wine at 37°C, after which they were sectioned to evaluate the degree of internal staining. Recognizing that degree of monomer conversion, water sorption and water solubility are potential influencing factors, these properties of each cement were measured and compared with their respective staining tendencies. In addition, the amount of stain compounds was quantified by a new test protocol.

Results There was a moderate correlation (R² = 0.60) between the degree of color change and water solubility, suggesting that the leaching of water-soluble components in resin cement may contribute to red wine staining. In addition, there was a strong correlation (R² = 0.94) between the amount of stain compounds and the degree of color change, indicating that the extent of staining can be effec-tively elucidated by a straightforward physical model, without requiring the consideration of intricate chemical interactions between stain molecules and resin composition.

Conclusions

Within the limitations of this study, it can be concluded that the use of low-water-soluble and anti-staining resin cements, such as the newly developed ZEN^TM Universal Resin Cement, has considerable advantages in aesthetic dentistry.