THE INFLUENCE OF ALLOY COMPOSITION ON ANAEROBIC ADHESIVES IN DENTAL BONDING

Objectives: Single-component anaerobic adhesives are in common use in the electronics and engineering industries. They are generally diacryl ate monomers which do not require conventional sources of heat, light or chemicals for activation. Their advantages include activation by th e bonding substrate, as well as inhibition of polymerisation until the necessary anaerobic environment is created. The aim of this experimen t was to determine whether metal attachments could be successfully bon ded to enamel in vitro by such adhesives. Methods: Metal attachments c apable of providing an anaerobic environment were fabricated from one of three alloys: stainless steel, copper or cobalt-chromium. They were bonded to prepared human enamel with one of four adhesives: Orthodont ic Concise, as a control, and three anaerobic adhesives, Perma Metal, Permabond A134 and Loctite 326. The specimens were then bond tested in shear to failure after bench curing for one of four time periods. Res ults: The results were analysed in terms of mean force to debond (N) a nd 95% confidence intervals Kaplan-Meier survival probabilities and lo g-rank tests were performed for the 10 min test times. Conclusions: Bo th Orthodontic Concise and the three anaerobic adhesives displayed a s pecificity towards different attachment alloys. Whereas Orthodontic Co ncise displayed the highest force to debond with stainless steel attac hments, for the anaerobic adhesives this was true of the copper attach ments. With stainless steel attachments, however, the force to debond with the anaerobic adhesives was similar to that observed with Orthodo ntic Concise and steel, at least after the relatively short 10 min ben ch curing time. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.