In vivo tarnish of alternative alloys

The in vivo tarnishing of two low-gold alloys, two silver-palladium alloys, and one type-3 alloy in two different structural states was investigated after 4, 8, and 16 weeks. The alloy specimens were placed in 10 mandibular complete dentures by using carriers that enabled removal of the specimens from the dentures to facilitate the evaluation. By means of four different tarnish indices the present study showed that the annealing of the low-gold alloys and the two silver-palladium alloys resulted in a reduction of tarnish, but this was not the case with the high-gold alloy. Least tarnishing was seen in annealed specimens from the silver-palladium alloys and the as-cast specimens of the high-gold alloy.