Mass of amalgam restorations and its implications for assessing the environmental impact of dental amalgam

Although many countries are phasing out the use of dental amalgam, numerous amalgam restorations will remain in the mouths of people. Reliable estimates of the mass of amalgam restorations are severely lacking, making it difficult to assess the contribution of dental amalgam to environmental mercury pollution. In this study, the mass of 245 amalgam restorations was measured after mechanical removal from permanent teeth extracted in Slovenia. The differences in restoration mass according to the tooth type (premolars, upper molars, lower molars) and the number of amalgam-restored surfaces (1, 2, ≥ 3) were assessed by using a two-way analysis of variance.