A COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT OF REMINERALIZING AGENTS ON THE SURFACE MORPHOLOGY AND MICROHARDNESS OF BLEACHED ENAMEL AN INVITRO STUDY

Aim To evaluate the effect of remineralizing agents on the surface morphology and microhardness of bleached enamel. Methodology Forty maxillary anterior teeth whose crowns were mounted on resin blocks with the labial surface facing upwards. Baseline microhardness was recorded. All the specimens were subjected to three cycles of bleaching for 3 minutes at interval of 24 hours per cycle. The post bleach specimens were subjected to SEM and Vickers microhardness tester. The specimens are divided into four groups based on the remineralizing agent used, Group I: no remineralizing agent applied (control); Group II: sodium fluoride foaming solution applied; Group III: CPP-ACP + Fcrème applied; Group IV: Calcium Nanophosphate paste applied. Specimens were subjected to SEM and Vickers microhardness test. Results The observations were then statistically analyzed using One Way ANOVA followed by Student’s ‘t’ test to detect significance level of p ? 0.05 between different groups. Group IV showed higher VHN values compared to other groups which were comparable to values of unbleached enamel microhardness.SEM evaluation demonstrated more remineralization of bleached enamel surface in Group IV. Conclusions McInnes bleaching solution decreased the microhardness of enamel.All the remineralizing agents used increased the microhardness of bleached enamel.