Testing sealing properties of restorative materials against moist dentin

The objectives of this investigation were (1) to develop a sensitive laboratory system that simulates the physiological and clinical conditions of a prepared human tooth in order to facilitate the determination of the bonding and sealing efficacies of restorative dental materials and (2) to conduct experiments with two dentin bonding agents, two posterior composite resin restorative materials (hybrid and microfilled), and a glass-ionomer type II filling material. The system functioned well and provided data to indicate that, after margination, the two posterior composite resin restorative materials performed equally and both performed better than the glass-ionomer filling material; none of the materials provided a perfect seal immediately after insertion, although some restorations demonstrated perfect seals from 16 hours to 28 days after placement; the seal of the glass-ionomer material improved after 28 days of storage in buffer solution; each successive step in the respective composite resin procedures improved the seal except in one case for the microfilled resin.