Adhesion and its application with restorative materials.

Significant progress has been made in the area of adhesion and esthetic restorative materials. Each generation of product development aims to address many of the previous inadequacies. Current resin-based dentin bonding agents are miles ahead of agents introduced only 10 years ago. The glass ionomer cement has undergone considerable evolution and barely resembles the original formulation. Whether these modified cement-resins will become established in the restorative practice remains to be seen. Or possibly, the glass ionomer cement will evolve itself out of existence into a new "class" of restorative. Numerous questions still remain unanswered in the area of adhesive materials. In particular, the confirmation of preliminary laboratory results with controlled clinical research often never surfaces, or is delayed beyond the commercial life of proprietary adhesive systems. Without such data, little confidence in adhesive behavior can be gained. More importantly, without a thorough understanding of the performance of adhesives in vivo, knowledge will never be gained relative to adhesive mechanisms that are necessary to further technology in this area.