Surface Characteristics of Subtractively and Additively Manufactured Restorative Materials for Definitive Restorations

Advancements in Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), promoted the development of novel dental materials for several types of definitive restorations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the surface characteristics of resin-based CAD/CAM restorative materials, fabricated using both subtractive and additive manufacturing techniques. The materials tested included Filtek Z550 (FZ), Vita Enamic (VE), Shofu HC (SH), and VarseoSmile TriniQ (TQ). For each material, 24 specimens were prepared; half were manually polished following manufacturer’s recommendations, while the other half underwent standardized metallographic polishing. Surface roughness, wettability, and molecular composition were assessed. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS 29.0 at a 95% confidence level (α = 0.05). Statis-tically significant differences in surface properties were observed between direct and indirect restoratives following manual polishing, with SH performing favorably in terms of surface roughness. The polishing method significantly influenced surface characteristics within each material, except for certain roughness parameters in SH. Both surface roughness and wettability were dependent on the material and the polishing technique, highlighting the need for improved material-specific polishing protocols.material-specific polishing protocols.