An in vitro study to: evaluate and compare the surface roughness of a CAD/CAM hybrid ceramic “ Vita Enamic” and a newly introduced printable hybrid ceramic “ Flexcera”

Abstract

Aim: evaluate and compare the surface roughness of a CAD/CAM hybrid ceramic “Vita Enamic” and a newly introduced printable hybrid ceramic “Flexcera”.

Materials and methods: A total of twenty four square ceramic slices was prepared in a standardized manner; each specimen measured 1 mm thickness, 14 mm length, and 14 mm width. Specimens was divided in to two groups according to the material type; Group A: Vita Enamic and Group B: Flexcera n=12. All samples were subjected thermo-cycling for 5000 cycles at temperatures alternating between 5 and 55 °C. Specimens were tested using a contact surface roughness tester before and after thermocycling, evaluation parameter Ra values were expressed in microns. Statistical analysis was performed using Two-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was considered for analysing the effect on the outcome, Shapiro-Wilk test, using the built-in Shapiro test function, for normality (Shapiro and Wilk, 1965) and Levene’s test using the R “car” package (Fox and Stanford, 2019) to assess the homogeneity of variances in the dependent variable.

Results: Flexcera showed consistently higher surface roughness compared to Vita Enamic, both before and after thermocycling. For both materials, surface roughness increased after thermocycling.

Conclusion: 3D printed hybrid ceramic showed higher surface roughness values than the CAD/CAM milled hybrid ceramic. The 3D printable hybrid ceramic roughness value exceeded the acceptable quantitative threshold value, raising the risk of bacteria accumulation. thermocycling process appears to have a detrimental effect on the surface roughness of both materials, leading to increased roughness after the treatment.