Effect of salivary contamination on the bond strength of total-etch and self-etch adhesive systems: an in vitro study.

AIM To evaluate the influence of salivary contamination during dentin bonding procedures on shear bond strength and to investigate the effect of contaminant-removing treatments on the recovery of bond strength for two dentin-bonding agents. MATERIALS AND METHODS Seventy-seven human maxillary and mandibular molars were randomly divided into two groups for total-etch adhesive (Single bond-3M ESPE, USA) and self-etch primer (UniFil Bond-GC, Tokyo, Japan) and subjected to contamination with saliva. The data for each group were subjected to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Student Newman-Keuls test to make comparisons among the groups (p < 0.05). RESULTS Salivary contamination had less adverse effect on the shear bond strength of single bond total-etch adhesive when it was blot dried or washed. UniFil bond was tolerant of salivary contamination, except when contamination occurred after application of the primer. CONCLUSION In single bond adhesive, when the etched surface is contaminated by saliva, blotting the surface and applying the primer can recover the bond strength. Complete drying of the salivary contaminated surface should be avoided. In the UniFil bond groups, the repriming treatment (UF-V and UF-VI) resulted in the recovery of shear bond strength in the specimens contaminated after priming. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE The results of this study showed that total- etch adhesive (single bond) was not affected by salivary contamination on the etched surface when the bonding surface was kept moist. Self-etch adhesive (UniFil bond) also tolerated salivary contamination except when the contamination occurred after application of the primer.