The immediate bonding effectiveness of contemporary adhesives is quite favorable, regardless of the approach used. In the long term, the bonding effectiveness of some adhesives drops dramatically, whereas the bond strengths of other adhesives are more stable. This review examines the fundamental processes that cause the adhesion of biomaterials to enamel and dentin to degrade with time. Non-carious class V clinical trials remain the ultimate test method for the assessment of bonding effectiveness, but in addition to being high-cost, they are time- and labor-consuming, and they provide little information on the true cause of clinical failure. Therefore, several laboratory protocols were developed to predict bond durability. This paper critically appraises methodologies that focus on chemical degradation patterns of hydrolysis and elution of interface components, as well as mechanically oriented test set-ups, such as fatigue and fracture toughness measurements. A correlation of in vitro and in vivo data revealed that, currently, the most validated method to assess adhesion durability involves aging of micro-specimens of biomaterials bonded to either enamel or dentin. After about 3 months, all classes of adhesives exhibited mechanical and morphological evidence of degradation that resembles in vivo aging effects. A comparison of contemporary adhesives revealed that the three-step etch-and-rinse adhesives remain the 'gold standard' in terms of durability. Any kind of simplification in the clinical application procedure results in loss of bonding effectiveness. Only the two-step self-etch adhesives approach the gold standard and do have some additional clinical benefits.

http://www.endoexperience.com/documents/DeMunketalDurabiltyofadhesionJDR.pdf

A Critical Review of the Durability of Adhesion to Tooth Tissue: Methods and Results

https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/files/26420751/Doube_2010UKPMC.pdf

BoneJ: Free and extensible bone image analysis in ImageJ.

Bonding to tooth tissue can be achieved through an "etch&rinse," "self-etch" or "glass-ionomer" approach. In this paper, the basic bonding mechanism to enamel and dentin of these three approaches is demonstrated by means of ultramorphological and chemical characterization of tooth-biomaterial interfacial interactions. Furthermore, bond-strength testing and measurement of marginal-sealing effectiveness (the two most commonly employed methodologies to determine "bonding effectiveness" in the laboratory) are evaluated upon their value and relevance in predicting clinical performance. A new dynamic methodology to test biomaterial-tooth bonds in a fatigue mode is introduced with a recently developed micro-rotary fatigue-testing device. Eventually, today's adhesives will be critically weighted upon their performance in diverse laboratory studies and clinical trials. Special attention has been given to the benefits/drawbacks of an etch&rinse versus a self-etch approach and the long-term performance of these adhesives. Correlating data gathered in the laboratory with clinical results clearly showed that laboratory research CAN predict clinical effectiveness. Although there is a tendency to simplify bonding procedures, the data presented confirm that conventional three-step etch&rinse adhesives still perform most favorably and are most reliable in the long-term. Nevertheless, a self-etch approach may have the best future perspective. Clinically, when adhesives no longer require an "etch&rinse" step, the application time, and probably more importantly, the technique-sensitivity are substantially reduced. Especially "mild," two-step self-etch adhesives that bond through a combined micromechanical and chemical interaction with tooth tissue closely approach conventional three-step systems in bonding performance.

Buonocore memorial lecture, adhesion to enamel and dentin: current status and future challenges

http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/odontologia/robertramirez/PDF/17.pdf

Resin composite--state of the art.

http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/odontologia/robertramirez/PDF/3

Clinical effectiveness of contemporary adhesives: a systematic review of current clinical trials.

Physical properties and gap formation of light-cured composites with and without ‘softstart-polymerization’

Mechanical properties and wear behavior of light-cured packable composite resins

The problem is to transform the 3D binary image into the 3D local thickness image.Several steps to are given in [1]. The first is a Euclidean distance transformation (EDT) The distance map at W q , ( ) q Dmap , is the distance from q to the nearest background point. The sphere of radius ( ) q Dmap centered at q is completely inside the structure. If p is within this sphere, then the local thickness at p, ( ) p τ , is at least ( ) q Dmap . Points q are scanned to find ( ) p τ by maximizing this bound. A further simplification is to first remove many of the points whose spheres of radius ( ) q Dmap are completely contained within the corresponding spheres of other points. Removing all of the redundant points would produce the distance ridge (DR) which is related to the skeleton and the medial axis [1, 4].

Computing Local Thickness of 3D Structures with ImageJ

For the clinical performance of new dental restorative materials to be accurately assessed, the three-dimensional anatomical changes of the functional surfaces of the restoration must be elucidated over time. To this end, a highly accurate 3-D optical scanner has been developed that utilizes the principles of triangulation and a reference-free automated 3-D superimposition software. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy and the precision of the new system with and without referenced positioning. Additionally, the ability of the system to determine wear of posterior fillings three-dimensionally has been shown. Gypsum replicas of restored teeth were evaluated. The tooth surfaces were scanned with a resolution of 250,000 surface points within a measuring time of 20 to 40 sec. The results show that the precision and accuracy of 3-D data acquisition depend on the surface inclination. Up to an angle of 60 degrees, the precision is better than 3 microns, and the accuracy is better than 6 microns. If exact repositioning of the object before and after occlusal loading is possible, e.g., with in vitro studies, differences on the surface can be determined with a precision of 2.2 microns. In reference-free measurements, which are a necessity in clinical studies, the 3-D data acquisition in combination with the automatic matching program can detect wear with an accuracy of 10 microns. The application of this measuring device for the detection of wear of a composite filling functioning in the mouth has been shown. Since this measuring technique is automated, and measurements of high accuracy can be attained in a short period of time, this system offers the possibility for complex analyses of three-dimensional wear to be conducted on a large number of samples in clinical studies.

A New Optical 3-D Device for the Detection of Wear

Objective: Determination of flexural strength, flexural modulus, fracture toughness, Vickers hardness, and wear resistance of condensable composites (Solitaire, Surefil, Alert) and an ormocer (Definite) in comparison with a hybrid composite (Tetric Ceram) and an ion-releasing composite (Ariston pHc). Methods: Flexural strength, flexural modulus, and fracture toughness were determined in 3-point bending. Single-edge notched-bend specimens were used to evaluate fracture toughness. Microhardness was measured with a Vickers indenter. Wear was determined in a pin-on-block-design with a Degusit antagonist at 50 N load and quantified by a replica technique after 6000, 10000, 30000, and 50000 load cycles using a 3D-laser scanner. All results were statistically analyzed with ANOVA and post hoc Tukey HSD tests. Results: Alert exhibited the highest flexural modulus, KIC, and hardness, but lowest wear resistance. Solitaire presented the highest wear resistance, but significantly lower flexural strength, flexural modulus, KIC, and hardness than all other materials. No significant correlation could be detected between hardness and wear of the tested composites with Pearson's correlation coefficient. Significance: The condensable composites differed significantly in their mechanical properties. This study suggested that, besides the filler content level and filler size, other factors like matrix-filler interactions highly influence the fracture and wear behavior of the materials. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res (Appl Biomater) 53: 353–361, 2000

Karl-Heinz Kunzelmann

Papers

Physical properties and gap formation of light-cured composites with and without ‘softstart-polymerization’

Mechanical properties and wear behavior of light-cured packable composite resins

Computing Local Thickness of 3D Structures with ImageJ

A New Optical 3-D Device for the Detection of Wear

Mechanical properties of new composite restorative materials.