Determination of enamel microhardness in white spot lesions treated with infiltrating resins

Abstract

Aim: Determine in vitro if the Knoop surface microhardness of white spots lesions improve with the infiltration of low viscosity resins and compare it with the microhardness of healthy enamel. Materials and methods: 93 samples of bovine enamel were demineralized simulating white spot lesions, and then treated by infiltration of resins. The Knoop microhardness of the samples was measured before demineralization, after this process and after infiltration. Results: Demineralized samples showed a decrease in microhardness of 50%. The infiltration with resins improved this property, although the obtained values were far below the microhardness of healthy enamel. The statistical analysis, through analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey’s posthoc test, showed statistically significant differences between groups (p<0.001). Conclusions: Treatment of artificial white spot enamel lesions with infiltrating resins increased Knoop hardness but failed to reach values close to the hardness of healthy enamel.