FLUID PENETRATION BETWEEN FILLINGS AND TEETH USING CA⁴⁵

¹ School of Dentistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.

An earlier study using radioactive calcium and fillings of various types in green teeth showed obvious penetration around all types of fillings. Speculation on this finding would naturally lead one to wonder why fillings perform as well as they do for long periods of time when it is obvious solutions penetrate between the filling and the teeth quite easily. The purpose of this study was to recover fillings that had been in service to determine whether or not solutions would penetrate around these fillings after they had been in service in the oral cavity as readily as around the fillings placed in green teeth. It can be concluded, at least from these radioautographs, that service in the oral cavity has certainly not made these fillings less susceptible to fluid penetration.