Corrosion sealing of amalgam restorations in vitro

Amalgam restorations, when first placed, have been shown to exhibit a gap at the amalgam/tooth interface. With time in service, this gap fills with corrosion products that have the potential to "seal" the restoration. With the advent of high-copper, more corrosion-resistant amalgams, there has been concern that the time required to create this seal would be increased significantly when compared with low-copper traditional amalgams. The current study was designed to address this concern. Amalgam was condensed into a MACOR mold, simulating a Class I cavity form and then immersed into a 1.0% NaCl solution to simulate oral conditions. Using an air pressure test, the sealing was monitored over time. The results showed that the sealing was influenced by the size of the initial gap prior to immersion as well as corrosion resistance of the amalgam and that a corrosion-resistant amalgam with a small initial gap size can seal as quickly as a corrosion-prone amalgam. Therefore, it is not possible to predict sealing behavior based on corrosion resistance, alone. Furthermore, the presence of zinc in the amalgam alloy has been shown to result in the formation of zinc corrosion products in the amalgam/mold margin, which contributes to more rapid sealing. Analysis of a tooth extracted after 16 years of clinical service that had been restored with an amalgam-containing zinc was also shown to contain zinc corrosion products in the occlusal marginal area. This could explain the reported reduction in marginal fracture of clinically placed amalgam restorations made from zinc-containing alloys.