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Updated: Jul 17, 2026
Shrinkage of Dental Composite in Simulated Cavity Measured with Digital Image Correlation
Published on: July 21, 2014
Effect of opalescence in resin-based dental composites on the active color matching ability
Joseph Chang1, Bum-Soon Lim1, Shin Hye Chung2
1Department of Dental Biomaterials Science and Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, 101 Daehak-Ro, Jongno-Gu, Seoul, 03080, South Korea.
Objective:
This study aims to evaluate the influence of opalescence in the color matching ability of dental composites.
Methods:
Single-disc samples were prepared using 10 commercially available composites (6 conventional, 3 simplified-shade, and 1 single-shade). Dual-color samples were created using Omnichroma, Ceram.X Sphere TEC (A3 shade), and DenFil (B2/C2 shade), with various cavity diameters in the center, which were then filled with the aforementioned 10 composites. Additionally, single-color samples were prepared using the 4 base composites mentioned above. The ΔESingle-Dual were calculated as differences between single and dual samples. The color coordinates (CIE L*a*b*) of the samples were measured using a spectrophotometer. The results of translucency parameters (TP) and opalescence parameters (OP) of the 10 composites were compared with ΔE measurement samples.
Results:
TP and OP generally had a linear correlation, and ΔESingle-Dual mostly increased with cavity diameter. Regarding the correlation between ΔESingle-Dual and TP, little correlation was observed in the conventional composite bases, but higher correlations were observed in the simplified- or single-shade composite bases. Regarding the correlation between ΔESingle-Dual and OP, inverse correlations were observed in the conventional composite bases and simplified composite bases, but the single-shade composite base showed the linear correlations with OP.
Conclusions:
These findings highlight a potentially greater role for opalescence in the color matching ability of dental composites than previously acknowledged.
