Surface roughness and translucency of resin composites after immersion in coffee and soft drink.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the in vitro changes in color and surface roughness of different composite resins when subjected to cycles of immersion in three coloring solutions: coffee, soft drink, and coffee plus soft drink. Sixty test specimens were made of each material, all in shade A3. Translucency and initial roughness measurements were taken by spectrophotometer and roughness meter. Then the samples were submitted to three cycles per day of exposure to potentially coloring solutions for a period of 15 days. Final roughness and translucency measurements were taken, the mean and standard deviation calculated for each resin and each variable. Data were initially analyzed by the one away ANOVA test, which showed significant differences between groups (p<0.05). Subsequently the post hoc and Tukey tests were performed with level of significance of 0.05. The results showed that the coloring substances altered translucency and surface roughness. DURAFILL resin immersed in the soft drink (M3) was the least pigmented, while CONCEPT resin immersed in the coffee (M2) showed the the least loss of surface smoothness. The Spearman and Pearson coefficients were 0.38 and 0.04 respectively, signifying that there is no correlation between roughness and translucency.