Influence of mouth rinses on the surface hardness of bulk-fill resin composite

Introduction: Consumption of certain Mouthrinses may affect the physical properties of the BulkFill composite. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Six different Mouthrinses (i) Listerine (ii) Periogard (iii) Povicidal (iv) Hexidine (v) Hexidine EP (vi) Hiora, on surface microhardness bulk- fill sculptable composite resin (SoniFill). Materials and Methods: Sixty specimens of a bulk-fill resin composite material taken in acrylic mold. Each specimen will be cured for 40 s from the top and another 40 s from the bottom using LED light cure unit at 1200 mW/cm2. The baseline micro hardness values of the specimens will be recorded prior to immersion in the mouth rinses. Microhardness will be measured using Vicker's micro hardness tester. The specimens will then be immersed in 20ml of respective mouth rinses with both sides of specimen exposed and kept in an incubator at 37o C for 24h. Microhardness values will then be checked for each specimen using the same microhardness tester and same load and dwell time as previously mentioned above for pre-immersion test. Results: According to the result of the present study, prior to immersion, Sonicfill resin composite showed no significant difference in mean hardness before immersion between groups 1(Listerine), 2(Periogard), 3(Provicidal), 4(Hexidine), 5(Hexidine Ep) and 6(Hiora). Therefore, the null hypothesis all the mouth rinses used in the study irrespective of the presence or absence of alcohol reduced the micro hardness of Bulkfilled resin composite. Conclusions: All the Mouthrinses used in this study reduce the surface hardness in the materials tested.