The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the flow of a polyether, and poly vinylsiloxane impression materials with a recently introduced vinyl polyethersilicone hybrid elastomeric impression material.
Materials and methods: The flow of the medium viscosities of the tested materials was measured using the shark fin Device. One minute after the start of mixing, the pin was released and the solid cylinder was allowed to sink into the impression under its own weight, where the material flowed up into the slit producing a shark fin-like layer of tested impression material. The heights of the shark fin were measured at 60 minutes after the start of mixing, using a digital micrometer with 0.001 mm resolution. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used for comparison between the three groups. Tukey's post-hoc test was used for pair-wise comparison between the groups when ANOVA test is significant.
Results: there was a statistically significant difference between fin heights of the three materials (P-value <0.001), where polyether showed the statistically significantly highest mean fin height (12.7), however the hybrid material showed statistically significantly lower mean fin height (7.6). Moreover addition silicone showed the statistically significantly lowest mean fin height (5.5).
Conclusion: Hybridization of addition silicon and polyether impression materials improved their flow.