New Dental Composites Containing Multimethacrylate Derivatives of Bile Acids: A Comparative Study with Commercial Monomers

We have prepared multifunctional methacrylate derivatives of bile acids as cross-linkable monomers for use in dental composites. By modifying the chemical structure of the monomers, we were able to vary the viscosity, hydrophobicity, and reactivity and have studied the effect of these parameters on the conversion of the monomers, the shrinkage during polymerization, and the mechanical properties of the resulting polymers and composites. Materials containing these new monomers generally h ad physical, thermal, and mechanical properties comparable to those containing the commonly used dental monomers BisGMA or UDMA and had lower polymerization shrinkage. The multimethacrylate derivatives of cholic acid, which are known to be less cytotoxic than BisGMA and UDMA, are shown to be promising materials for dental applications.