USAF Dental Evaluation & Consultation Service Grinding it Out: Do New Adhesives Bond to Uncut Enamel? (1/03) Microtensile bond strength of self-etching adhesives to ground and unground

This study tested the bond strength of three types of bonding agents to ground and unground enamel, and examined the specimens after testing to see where they had failed. Seventytwo bovine incisors were used in the research. Half of the teeth were assigned to the Ground Enamel Group and were prepared by grinding the facial to produce a flat surface for bonding. The other 32 teeth (the Unground Enamel Group) were bonded without prior grinding. The three tested bonding agents were: a three-step product (Scotchbond Multi-Purpose, 3M ESPE) consisting of an etchant, primer, and adhesive; a two-step, selfetching primer product (Clearfil SE Bond, Kuraray/J. Morita) consisting of a self-etching primer and an adhesive; and a one-step, all-in-one, self-etching product (Prompt L-Pop, 3M ESPE) consisting of a single solution. Each bonding product was used to bond a button of composite resin to teeth in each group (unground and ground enamel), and their microtensile bond strength was measured. The results were that no differences in bond strengths were found among the three dentin bonding products. Also, there were no differences between bond strengths to ground and to unground enamel for any of the bonding agents.