Comparison of bond strength to three restorative materials after contamination and the use of two cleaning agents

Statement of problem. Scientific data on the decontamination effectiveness of a newly introduced cleaning agent are lacking. Purpose. The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate and compare the tensile bond strength (TBS) of 3 different restorative bonding surfaces after contamination with saliva following different cleaning protocols. Material and methods. A total of 192 disk specimens were made out of 3 materials (n=64); Katana Avencia (A), Katana Zirconia (Z), and e.max CAD (L). The bonding surfaces of all disks were polished, steam cleaned, and then pretreated by following the recommended protocol for each material. The specimens of each group were divided into 4 subgroups (n=16). The first subgroup served as the reference (R), where no contamination was applied. The 3 other subgroups were contaminated with saliva and subsequently rinsed with water for 20 seconds and dried with oil-and water-free air spray. They were then either not treated with any cleaning method (0), cleaned with Katana Cleaner (K), or cleaned with Ivoclean (I). The bonding surfaces of the specimens were perpendicularly luted to plexiglass tubes filled with dual-polymerizing composite resin (Clearfil DC Core) with resin cement (Panavia V5) after the recommended surface conditioning. Each subgroup was further subdivided into 2 groups: stored in 37 degrees C water for 3 days or subjected to thermal-cyclic loading for 150 days with 37 500 thermal cycles (7500 per month), temperature 5 to 55 degrees C, and dwell time of 30 seconds. All specimens were subjected to TBS testing in a universal testing machine. Three-way ANOVA was applied. A significant interaction (P<.01) was detected between the 3 different variables (material, treatment, aging). After significant interactions had been revealed by 3-way ANOVA, additional statistical analysis was performed by using separate 2-way ANOVAs, then separate 1-way ANOVAs followed by the Tukey-HSD test for post hoc pairwise comparisons among groups (alpha=.05 for all tests). All specimens underwent failure mode analysis after TBS testing Results. All specimens survived the storage with thermocycling except for group Z-0, where all specimens debonded during thermocycling. The mean +/- standard deviation TBS values ranged from 18.3 +/- 5.3 MPa to 34.0 +/- 5.4 MPa after 3 days and from 6.7 +/- 5.5 MPa to 26.9 +/- 5.4 MPa after 150 days. Conclusions. Contaminated groups that did not receive any cleaning had significantly lower TBS. Thermocycling had a negative effect on the TBS but was not statistically significant for all groups. Using the same cleaning method, the restorative material did had a significant effect on the TBS after 150 days. (J Prosthet Dent 2025;133:1047-1053)