Adhesion to enamel of light-cured poly-acid dental materials

The purpose of this study was to determine the tensile bond strengths of a resin-modified glass ionomer cement and a poly-acid modified resin composite to enamel. Three different enamel surface preparations (unetched enamel; enamel treated with 10 per cent polyacrylic acid, enamel etched with 35 per cent phosphoric acid), were used. On etched enamel, the glass ionomer cement (15.0 MPa) and the resin composite (14.3 MPa) had significantly higher bond strengths than the other groups tested, but were not significantly different from each other. In the acid treated groups, cohesive failure within the material occurred in all specimens, while in the other groups, all specimens failed adhesively. Further investigation is required to test the clinical efficacy of these restorative materials.