The object of this study was to compare the microleakage between various composite resin systems of multistep, one-bottle, and self-etching systems using electrical conductivity.
After making class V cavities (4×3×1.5 mm around CEJ), they were bulk filled with three kinds of resins of A3. Teeth were storaged in a saline solution for one day, after then, they were finished and polished using Sof-Lex system. Another stress of thermocycling was made for 500 times from 5° to 55℃ with each dwelling time of 10 seconds. Electrical conductivity (microamphere, µA) was checked four times: before and after cavity preparation, after filling, after thermocycling.
One-way ANOVA and 95% Scheffe Post Hoc test was used for checking any statistical difference among groups. Another 95% Paired Samples T-test was also used for estimating any significant difference within group after cavity filling or thermocycling.
The results were as follows:
Every specimen showed various range of microleakage after filling. There was, however, no difference between composite resin systems. All composite resin systems showed marked increase in microleakage with a thermocycling (p<0.05), there was, however, no difference between composite resin systems. Although there was no significant difference between groups (p=0.078), one-bottle and self-etching systems seemed to be unstable than multistep system.
Within the limits of this study, it was concluded that much more consideration should be needed when using thermally unstable one-bottle and self-etching systems that have multi-advantages from simplified step. More studies will be needed to solve these kinds of problems.