Microshear Bond Strength of a Self-adhesive Composite to Erbium Laser-Treated Primary Enamel

Introduction: advances have been made in the composition of flowable composites in recent years and self-adhering composites, which do not require a bonding agent, have recently been introduced to the market. this study aimed to assess the microshear bond strength (μsbs) of a self-adhering flowable composite (vertise) to primary enamel treated with a graphite disc with silicon carbide particles (sic) and laser irradiation, the result of which was compared to that of a conventional flowable composite (premise). methods: in this in vitro, experimental study, 72 samples of sound primary enamel were evaluated. a smooth enamel surface was obtained using a graphite disc. next, the erbium chromium yttrium scandium gallium garnet (er,cr:ysgg) laser was used for enamel surface treatment in half of the samples (n = 36). all the samples were then randomly divided into 4 groups of (i) premise flowable composite (pf) without laser (n = 18), (ii) vertise flowable composite (vf) without laser (n = 18), (iii) pf with laser (n = 18), and (iv) vf with laser (n = 18). the teeth were then incubated at 37°c for 24 hours and were then subjected to thermocycling. the μsbs of samples was measured using a universal testing machine and reported in megapascal (mpa). data were analyzed using spss via the two-way anova and independent-samples t test at p < 0.05. results: the mean μsbs of vf was significantly higher to the laser-treated samples (13.60 ± 5.47) compared with the non-treated samples (5.89 ± 2.42) (p < 0.001). however, no significant difference was noted in the μsbs of pf to the laser-treated (13.18 ± 3.45) and non-treated samples (16.06 ± 3.52) (p = 0.058). conclusion: the μsbs of the conventional flowable composite is higher than that of the self- adhering flowable composite to the enamel of primary teeth. enamel surface treatment with laser irradiation increases the μsbs of self-adhering flowable composites.