The bonding efficacy of current dentin adhesives is not affected by the dentin substrate age. Chemical bonding may play a role in the bonding effectiveness of specific adhesives.
SUMMARYPurpose: To study the effect of dentin age and adhesive composition on the microtensile dentin bond strengths (lTBS) of five dentin adhesives.Materials and Methods: Sixty extracted caries-free human teeth were assigned to the appropriate age group: less than 21 years of age (,21), 21-40 years of age (21-40), and greater than 40 years of age (.40). For each age group, specimens were randomly divided into five dentin adhesives: (1) Adper Easy Bond (EB, 3M ESPE), a one-step self-etch adhesive; (2) Experimental Adper Easy Bond without the Vitrebond Co-polymer (CP) (EBnoCP, 3M ESPE); (3) Adper Single Bond Plus (SB, 3M ESPE), a two-step etch&rinse adhesive; (4) Experimental Adper Single Bond Plus without CP (SBnoCP, 3M ESPE); and (5) Adper Scotchbond Multi-Purpose (MP, 3M ESPE), a threestep etch&rinse adhesive, as the control group. Specimens were sectioned in X and Y directions and the resulting beams were tested to failure in tension mode at a crosshead speed of 1 mm/min. Statistical analysis was computed using t-test and two-way analysis of variance followed by Fisher least significant difference multiple comparison post hoc test at p , 0.05.Results: The highest mean lTBS values were obtained in the control group (MP) for all age groups. EB resulted in statistically similar mean lTBS compared to EBnoCP for all age groups: p = 0.538 for (,21); p = 0.974 for (21-40); and p = 0.909 for (.40). SB resulted in statistically higher mean lTBS than SBnoCP for all age groups [p,0.009 for (,21); p,0.028 for (21-40); and p,0.041 for (.40)]. MP, the control group, resulted in statistically lower mean lTBS when applied to the oldest age group