Laurence is a copywriter and trained journalist. His passion is creating insightful and educational content for dental professionals of every level. Outside of work, he enjoys watching sport, quizzing and spending time with his family.
Relieving Stress... The Composite Way
The process of placing a composite restoration can be stressful if the procedure used is not simple, straightforward and easy to understand. 3M has several materials designed to remove unnecessary stress at every stage of a restoration.
Composite Bonding
Most composites require bonding to the tooth with the use of an adhesive. The gold standard is sometimes thought to be the old 4th generation systems with separate etching, priming and bonding protocols which take time, are very technique sensitive but if done properly can provide an excellent bond.
The last 25 years have seen dental manufacturers simplify the adhesive procedure and we have seen 4th generation move into 5th, followed by 6th and finally to the 7th where all etch, prime and bonding components were combined into one bottle with one brush that could simply be applied to teeth.
2011 saw the end of the generation terminology with the development of the first universal adhesive, 3M Scotchbond Universal adhesive. An all-in-one adhesive with a starting pH of 2.7 meant that this could easily be applied to dentine and cut enamel, and with the use of a separate etching gel could be used to treat challenging surfaces such as uncut enamel.
Composite Placement
Composite placement can be stressful. Clinician stress is often high when multilayering different opacities in an upper 7 when trying to minimise the c-factor by doing our incremental herring bone layering pattern, trying to ensure that each composite layer is no more than 2mm so it will be light cured properly.
The arrival of bulk fill composites into the market in around 2012 helped with this and these are commonly found in most dental surgeries today. Starting off as translucent flowable materials, these products generate much less stress within the restoration and therefore put less stress on the surrounding tooth.
Limited by their lack of strength and aesthetic properties, more highly filled bulk fill composites have been introduced which do not require a capping layer and can be placed very quickly and easily to depths of around 4 or 5mm.
3M Filtek One Bulk Fill restorative is one of the most innovative to come to the market in recent times. Incorporating stress relieving monomers and true nanofiller, Filtek One bulk fill exhibits very low internal stresses and excellent wear properties against opposing enamel.