A 5-YEAR CLINICAL REVIEW OF BOND FAILURE WITH A LIGHT-CURED RESIN ADHESIVE

The purpose of this study was to investigate the time to first failure of stainless steel orthodontic brackets (Ormco Corp, Glendora, Calif) bonded with a light-cured resin adhesive (Transbond, 3M Unitek, Monro via, Calif) and assess whether time to failure was related to the pati ent's age at the start of treatment or sex, the proficiency of the ind ividual placing the brackets, or the presenting malocclusion. Data on 548 patients with 7118 bonded brackets we re analyzed. Survival analys is was carried out on a single bracket per patient. In each patient, t he first bracket to fail was studied. In cases where no brackets faile d, the bracket with the shortest follow-up time was analyzed and handl ed as a censored observation in the formal analysis. Median time until first bracket failure was 442 days, and an overall failure rate of 6% was recorded. There were no significant differences in time to first failure of brackets with respect to the sex or age of the patient at t he start of treatment (p=0.168, and p=0.261, respectively), operator p roficiency in placing brackets (p-0.189), or presenting malocclusion ( p=0.052). Performance of brackets bonded with Transbond does not appea r to vary significantly according to the variables examined.