Characterisation of resin–dentine interfaces by compressive cyclic loading

The aims of this in vitro study were to evaluate the ultra-morphological changes in resin–dentine interfaces after different amounts of thermomechanical load (TML), and to determine the corresponding microtensile bond strengths (μTBS). Enamel/dentine discs with a thickness of 2 mm were cut from 24 human third molars and bonded with four adhesives involving different adhesion approaches: Syntac (Ivoclar Vivadent; used as multi-step etch-and-rinse adhesive), Clearfil SE Bond (Kuraray; two-step self-etch adhesive), Xeno III (Dentsply DeTrey; mixed all-in-one self-etch primer adhesive system), and iBond (Heraeus Kulzer; non-mixed all-in-one self-etch adhesive). The resin–dentine discs were cut into beams (width 2 mm; 2 mm dentine, 2 mm resin composite) and subsequently subjected to cyclic TML using ascending amounts of mechanical/thermal cycles (20 N at 0.5 Hz of mechanical load and 5–55 °C of thermal cycles: for 0/0, 100/3, 1,000/25, 10,000/250, 100,000/2,500 cycles). Loaded specimens were either cut perpendicularly in order to measure μTBS (n=20; crosshead speed: 1 mm/min) or were immersed in an aqueous tracer solution consisting of 50 wt% ammoniacal silver nitrate and processed for ultra-morphological nanoleakage examination using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). μTBS were significantly decreased by increasing amounts of TML for all adhesives (p<0.05). Bond strengths after 0 vs. 100,000 thermomechanical cycles were: Syntac: 41.3/30.1 MPa; Clearfil SE Bond 44.8/32.5 MPa; Xeno III 27.5/13.7 MPa; iBond 27.0/6.2 MPa. Relatively early, a certain amount of nanoleakage was observed in all groups by TEM, which was more pronounced for Xeno III and iBond. The incidence of nanoleakage remained stable or was even reduced with increasing load cycles for all adhesives except iBond, where exact failure origins were detected within the adhesive and at the top of the hybrid layer.