Shear bond strength of orthodontic brackets bonded with a modified 1-step etchant-and-primer technique

When bonding orthodontic brackets to enamel, most orthodontists use a conventional technique of etching tooth enamel with phosphoric acid, placing a hydrophilic primer on the etched, rinsed, and dried surface, then bonding the bracket with an adhesive resin composite. New systems simultaneously etch and prime the tooth surface in preparation for bonding. The purpose of this study was to compare the shear bond strength of orthodontic brackets bonded to enamel with a conventional, multistep adhesive system and a self-etching primer adhesive system. In addition, a third group was included in which the air dispersion step in the self-etching primer system was omitted. Brackets were bonded to 108 extracted human molars according to 1 of 3 experimental protocols--group 1: conventional multistep adhesive (n = 36); group 2: self-etching primer system (n = 36); group 3: self-etching primer system without air dispersion (n = 36). Specimens were loaded to failure in a universal testing machine (Instron, Canton, Mass). Mean shear bond strengths in megapascals (standard deviation) were 11.3 (2.2), 11.9 (3.2), and 8.2 (2.8) for groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Data were subjected to 1-way analysis of variance at alpha =.05. The mean shear bond strength of the self-etching primer group in which the air dispersion step was omitted was significantly less than in the other 2 groups (P <.001). However, there was no difference in mean shear bond strength between the conventional, multistep adhesive system and the self-etching primer system when the primer was dispersed correctly (P =.34).