Influence of CAD/CAM fabrication on denture surface properties

Abstract

Three main properties are responsible for the microbial attractiveness of denture surfaces: roughness, hydrophilicity and free surface energy. This study investigated whether CAD/CAM-fabricated dentures are more favourable for these surface properties than conventionally fabricated dentures. The mucosal surface roughness of 54 standardised study dentures was measured using contact profilometry. The surface hydrophilicity and free surface energy of 70 standardised denture resin specimens were determined by contact angle measurements. Both experimental settings compared AvaDent (AD), Baltic Denture System (BDS), Vita VIONIC (VV), Whole You Nexteeth (WN) and Wieland Digital Dentures (WDD) surfaces with conventionally manufactured denture surfaces (control group). These data were analysed using ANOVA together with Tukey's test or the Games-Howell post hoc test. All CAD/CAM dentures had lower mean surface roughness values than conventional dentures. For AD, VV, WN and WDD, the differences were statistically significant. Vita VIONIC (P