Surface treatment of gold alloys for resin adhesion.

This in vitro study compared three methods of surface treating gold alloys to improve resin adhesion. The tensile bond strengths and modes of failure between specimen pairs cemented with a chemically adhesive resin were recorded. Heat-treated gold alloy specimens were significantly more resistant to bond failure under tensile loading than were either alumina-blasted or tin-plated gold specimens. There was no statistically significant difference in bond failure between alumina-blasted and tin-plated gold specimens. The surface treatment altered the mode of failure from adhesive and/or adhesive-cohesive for alumina-blasted and tinplated gold specimens to cohesive (within the resin) for heat-treated gold specimens. Three case reports are presented to illustrate clinical applications of heat-treated gold alloys.