Comparative Evaluation of Bond Strength of Dual-Cured Resin Cements: An In-Vitro Study

BACKGROUND: To compare the microtensile bond strength of resin cements to enamel and dentin and to determine the type of bond failure using stereomicroscope. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this in-vitro study 40 teeth were embedded in acrylic resin and divided into two main groups i.e., Group A for enamel and Group B for dentin. Each group is again subdivided into four subgroups, which are as follows; Subgroup 1 for Calibra resin cement, Subgroup 2 for Paracem, Subgroup 3 for Variolink II and Subgroup 4 for Rely X ARC. These resin cements were applied on enamel and dentin according to manufacturer’s instructions followed by incremental build-up of composite resin on the top of resin cements. Each tooth was sectioned perpendicular to the resin-substrate interface with a slow speed diamond saw under water cooling yielding sections of approximately 1 mm(2). On an average, three sections from each tooth were used for testing. The beams obtained after sectioning were stressed to failure under tension in a custom made stainless steel forceps held in a universal testing machine (Lloyd) at a crosshead speed of 1.0 mm/min. Results were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance, independent t-test, and Tukey’s HSD post-hoc test. RESULTS: Cements bonded to enamel substrates showed higher mean bond strength compared to dentin, which is statistically significant. Rely X ARC showed highest mean bond strength to both the substrates. CONCLUSION: There was a significant difference between the bond strength to enamel and dentin and, Rely X ARC resin cement showed higher bond strength compared with the other groups.