The bonding of an adhesive resin cement to single and combined adherends encountered in resin-bonded bridge work: an in vitro study.

Although resin-bonded bridges should ideally be bonded to enamel, abutment teeth may present with dentine or restorations at the bonding sites. This study assessed the influence of bonding to such adherends on bridge retention by using tensile bond strength measurements as the criteria for judgement. An adhesive resin cement (Panavia Ex) was bonded to single adherends of enamel, dentine, composite resin, glass ionomer or amalgam, and to combined adherends of enamel/dentine or enamel/restorative material. The bond strength to enamel (28 MPa) was comparable with that to composite resin (25 MPa), but significantly higher than to dentine (8 MPa), amalgam (8 MPa) and glass ionomer (13 MPa). When the bonding area was half enamel and half restorative material, the bond strength was only equivalent to that obtained when the entire bonding area consisted of restorative material, the less favourable adherend. A similar trend was observed with specimens of enamel/dentine. This indicated that the magnitude of the bond between the resin cement and combined adherends was limited by the strength of the bond to the less favourable adherend. It appears that extending a bridge retainer to cover exposed dentine, a glass-ionomer filling or an amalgam filling, could adversely affect the bridge retention.