Objectives: In atraumatic restorative dentistry, the usage of antibacterial materials with glass ionomer cements (GICs) are considered as beneficial for eliminating the residual caries under the restoration. However, adding such antibacterials to the GIC could lead harmful effects on the pyhsical and chemical properties of the cement structure. Thus, it was aimed to analyze the microhardness and fluoride releasing alterations of chlorhexidine (CHX)+benzalkonium chloride (BC) antibacterial (AB)

more »

... ixtures which were added to the powder of conventional glass ionomer cement (CGIC). Material and Method: The powders of AB (1% CHX+1% BC) were added to the powders of CGIC and selected as experimental group (EXP). Antibacterial free CGIC was assigned as control (CNT). Vickers micro hardness measurements (VHN; n=10, for each group) and fluoride releasing (FR; n=10, for each group) amounts were calculated at days 1 and 7. Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests were used for statistical analysis at a significance level of p<0.05. Results: Significantly higher VHN values were obtained in CNT compared to the EXP group at days 1 (p<0.001) and 7 (p<0.001). Significantly increased VHN values observed at day 7 compared to the day 1 in CNT (p<0.01) and EXP (p<0.05) groups. The FR amounts indicated no significant differences between CNT and EXP at days 1 (p>0.05) and 7 (p>0.05). Significantly higher FR values were shown at day 7 compared to the day 1 in CNT (p<0.01) and EXP (p<0.01) groups. Conclusions: It can be concluded that, even the usage of 1% CHX + 1% BC mixtures with the CGIC may be more problematic for microhardness values but acceptable for fluoride releasing properties compared to the CNT group, reasonable time dependent alterations observed in VHN and FR results should not be overlooked for future studies.