Effect of EDTA conditioning on bond strength to bovine dentin promoted by four current adhesives

Purpose: To investigate the effect of disodium dihydrogen ethylenediamine tetraacetate dihydrate (EDTA) conditioning prior to the application of adhesive systems on the bond strength of resin composite to dentin. Methods: 80 bovine teeth were ground with 600-grit SiC paper to obtain flat dentin surfaces. Half of the specimens were conditioned with 0.5 mol EDTA aqueous solution (pH 7.4) for 60 seconds, water-rinsed and air-dried, and the other half were used without any treatment. The specimens were randomly divided in four groups of 10 each. The dentin surfaces were treated with each of two "all-in-one" adhesive systems (One-up Bond F, OB; Reactmer Bond, RB), a self-etching priming system (Clearfil SE Bond, SE), and a total-etch one-bottle bonding system (Single Bond, SB). For SB, the adhesive was applied on EDTA-conditioned dentin without H₃PO₄ etching. Then a layer of resin composite was placed and light-cured for 40 seconds. The tensile bond strength was measured and the resin-dentin interface was observed using a scanning electron microscope. Results: The mean and standard deviation of tensile bond strength in MPa to ground dentin were 9.3±3.5/OB, 11.6±2.0/RB, 23.2±4.9/SE and 19.7±4.1/SB. Bond strengths to EDTA-conditioned dentin were 15.0±3.0/OB, 16.8±3.6/RB, 22.8±5.2/SE and 19.4±5.1/SB. Duncan's Multiple Range test revealed that the EDTA-conditioned dentin showed significantly higher tensile bond strength than the non-conditioned one for "all-in-one" adhesive systems (P< 0.05) but no significant difference was found for the self-etching priming and total-etch one-bottle bonding systems. At the resin-dentin interface, EDTA-conditioned specimens formed thicker hybrid layers than non-conditioned ones for all systems except for SB.