The effect of dentine conditioning with polyacrylic acid on the clinical performance of glass ionomer cement.

There is equivocal laboratory evidence that pretreating (conditioning) dentine with poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) increases the bond strength of glass ionomer (polyalkenoate) cement; however, this has only been tested clinically to a limited extent. Forty Class V abrasion lesions were restored with glass ionomer cement; 20 with PAA conditioning and 20 without. Restorations were assessed after one year for marginal staining on a continuous linear rating scale. There was slightly more marginal staining around restorations in the group not conditioned with PAA, and one restoration from this group was partly lost. However, the difference in the clinical performance between the restorations in the two groups was neither clinically nor statistically significant.