Measurement of Fluoride Ion Release From Restorative Material Using an Ion-Selective Electrode and Ultraviolet-Visible Light Spectrophotometer.

Background: Importance of fluoride in dental restorative materials for preventing secondary caries. Several commercially available tooth-colored dental restorative materials, such as glass ionomer cement, resin composites, and compomers were used for this study.

Aim: To evaluate the amount of fluoride release from tooth-colored restorative materials [Conventional Glass Ionomer Cement (GC Fuji II)], Resin-modified Glass Ionomer Cement (ACTIVA BioACTIVE-RESTORATIVE), and Giomer (BEAUTIFIL II LS)] using ion-selective electrode (ISE) and spectrophotometer using zirconyl alizarin red dye method.

Materials And Methods: A total of 90 extracted premolars were divided into two control groups and four experimental groups. Group I: GC Fuji II/ISE; Group II: BEAUTIFIL II LS/ISE; Group III: ACTIVA BioACTIVE-RESTORATIVE/ISE; Group IV: GC Fuji II/Spectrophotometer; Group V: BEAUTIFIL II LS/Spectrophotometer; and Group VI: ACTIVA BioACTIVE-RESTORATIVE/Spectrophotometer. The amount of fluoride released was analyzed using an ion-selective elective method and spectrophotometer. The results were analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance and Scheffe tests ( ≤ 0.05).

Results: Groups I and IV exhibited the highest fluoride release (1.42 and 1.12 ppm), which was statistically significant ( < 0.05) compared with Groups II and V, which showed the least using both methods. The fluoride release pattern of ACTIVA BioACTIVE (Groups III and VI) restorative was significantly lower than that of glass ionomers and showed no significant difference from the giomers groups (Groups II and IV).

Conclusion: Conventional glass ionomer cement (GIC) showed the highest fluoride release followed by enhanced resin-modified GIC and giomer irrespective of the methods used. Fluoride ion concentration values obtained from the ISE method, and spectrophotometer method were comparable. Alizarin red dye can be used as an alternative to sulfanilic acid azochromotrop dye for the estimation of the release of fluoride ions from dental materials, which is known to be sensitive and much more economical compared with the latter.