Volumetric Shrinkage of one Silorane and four Methacrylate Flowable Composites

Objectives: The recently published ring opening polymerization technology of Filtek Silorane led to a polymerization shrinkage of below 1%. The purpose of this study was to determine the polymerization shrinkage of an experimental Silorane based flowable composites and four commercially available methacrylate based  flowable composites. Methods: four methacrylate based flowable and one experimental silorane based flowable composite were tested according the bonding disc method (n=5). All data were analyzed by One Way ANOVA/Fisher LSD test (p<0.05), means with the same letters are statistically the same, standard deviations are given in brackets.

Results:

Composite                                   Manufacturer        Shrinkage [%]           

Silorane Flow Exp                       3M ESPE             1,74 (11)a

GrandioFlow                                VOCO                  3,15 (3)b

EvoFlow                                       Ivoclar                   3,74 (4)c

Supreme Flow                             3M ESPE             3,99 (4)d

Venus Flow                                  Heraeus               4,44 (5)e

Conclusions: The experimental Silorane flowable composite exhibits the lowest shrinkage among all tested materials. This finding is in agreement with previously published contributions that the ring opening Silorane curing technology reduces the polymerization shrinkage significantly.