The aim of this study was to evaluate the surface properties of orthodontic resins with and without fluoride. Forty disks, measuring 2 mm thick by 6 mm in diameter, were made of 4 bracket-bonding composite resins (n=10): Transbond Plus Color Change-3M/Unitek (TPCC); Transbond XT- 3M/Unitek (TXT), Orthocem -FGM (OC); Orthocem UV Trace-FGM (OCUV). The discs were photoactivated for 40 seconds with irradiance of 450 mW/cm2 and manually polished in sequence by silicon carbide sandpapers with 1200 and 2000 grain size and finished with diamond paste and felt disc. The surface microhardness analysis was performed using a Shimadzu Micro Hardness Tester HMV-2,000 (Shimadzu Corporation, Kyoto, Japan) with a load of 50 gF and a 5 second penetration time. Surface roughness readings were taken using a Surf Corder Roughness Meter (SE 1700- Kosaka, Lisboa-Portugal). For data analysis, ANOVA (one-way) was used, followed by Tukey's post-test (?=0.05). The microhardness results showed a difference (p?0.05) in the means of the orthodontic resins between TPCC and TXT with the other groups. After the surface roughness analysis, the averages showed that TPCC resin showed higher roughness compared to OC and OCUV (p?0.05), and there was no statistical difference with TXT. It was concluded that statistically the composite resins with fluoride showed significant difference regarding hardness and roughness.
