Isotropic shear bond strength behavior of superficial bovine dentin: A pilot study

The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the shear bond strength of superficial bovine incisor dentin in different crown regions. Bonding was performed to the incisal, middle and cervical thirds of superficial bovine coronal dentin (n = 20) with a two-step etchand-rinse adhesive (Optibond Solo Plus) and resin composite (Z100). Shear bond strength was evaluated at 24 h and failure modes of representative specimens wereobserved with FE-SEM. Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test with a significance level of 0.05 was used for data analysis. Mean shear bond strength values for the incisal, middle, and cervical thirds were 36.9 (3.1), 42.6 (2.6), and 37.1 (2.1) respectively with no significant differences evidenced between the crown thirds (p = 0.19). Observation of the failure mode of representative specimens demonstrated that specimens with high bond strength values exhibited-predominantly mixed-type failures whereas low strength specimens exhibited adhesive failures between the dentin and adhesive. The absence of significant differences in shear bond strength between crown thirds indicate that, regardless of tubule orientation, any crown region can be used when superficial bovine incisor dentin is used for shear bond strength testing.