Effect of tack cure time on polymerization shrinkage of dual-cure resin cement

When luting indirect restorations with dual-cure resin cement (DCRC), excess cement can be easily removed by performing tack cure of DCRC for a few seconds. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether different tack cure times affect polymerization shrinkage (PS) of the selected DCRC. One dual-cure resin cement (G-CEM LinkAce, GC) was used for measuring PS in light-cure (LC group), self-cure (SC group), and two tack-cure modes. In the first tack-cure subgroup, tack cure was performed for 1, 2, 3, and 5 seconds, followed by light cure after 2 minutes of remnant removal time in each case (TC-LC groups). In the other tack-cure subgroup, tack cure was performed for the same lengths of time, but followed by self-cure in each case (TC-SC groups). PS was measured by a modified bonded disc method for 1,800 seconds. One-way analysis of variance followed by Duncan's post hoc test was used to determine any statistically significant differences among the test groups (α = 0.05). When the DCRC was self-cured after tack cure, PS was significantly lower than when it was only self-cured (p < 0.05); however, tack cure time did not affect PS (p > 0.05). When the DCRC was light-cured, PS was not affected by tack cure or tack cure time (p > 0.05). Therefore, tack cure within 5 seconds did not negatively affect the final PS when the DCRC was light-cured after cement remnant removal.