Marginal sealing durability of two contemporary self-etch adhesives

Introduction. Sealing abilities of two self-etch adhesives were evaluated after two aging processes: storage in water and thermocycling. Materials and Methods. Cl V cavities were prepared on the buccal and lingual aspects of 48 human premolars, with cervical margins 1 mm below the CEJ. Clearfil Protect Bond (CPB) and BeautiBond (BB) (two-step and one-step self-etch adhesives, resp.) were applied, each to half of the cavities and restored with composite resin. Each group was randomly subdivided into 4 subgroups (n = 12) and evaluated for dye penetration after 24 hours, after 3000 thermocycling rounds, after a 6-month water storage, and after 3000 thermocycling rounds plus 6-month water storage, respectively. Data was analyzed using SPSS 11.5 and Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests (α = 0.05). Results. There were no significant differences in enamel and dentin microleakage between the adhesives (P = 0.683; P = 0.154). Furthermore, no significant differences were observed in enamel microleakage of each one of CPB and BB (P = 0.061 and P = 0.318, resp.). However, significant decrease was observed in subgroups 3 and 4 (P = 0.001) for CPB dentinal margins. Conclusion. In this study, limited aging procedures had no influence on marginal integrity of composite resin restorations bonded with self-etch adhesives of CPB and BB. Furthermore, CPB dentinal sealing improved after aging.