Dental amalgams have been in use for over 150 years, making this one of the oldest methods used in oral health care, predated only by the use of gold fillings. Dental amalgam is the combination of 43-54% liquid mercury and 46-57% of alloy powder made out of copper, silver, tin, and sometimes small amounts of palladium, zinc, and indium.
The use of dental amalgams decreased during the 1970s due to a general decline in dental caries among children and adults. Improved oral hygiene products and practices as well as modification in diets also contributed to the decrease in use of dental amalgam. In the 1990’s, there were over 200 million restorative treatments done in the United States. Only 96 million of these procedures were of dental amalgams, a 38% decrease since the 1970’s.
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