THE USE OF A TISSUE ADHESIVE FOR BONDING OF ORTHODONTIC ATTACHMENTS: AN IN VITRO STUDY

Objectives: the aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a tissue adhesive (ethyl-2- cyanoacrylate) when used for bonding of orthodontic attachments. materials and methods: the stainless steel buttons were bonded to 22 extracted human molar teeth according to one of the four protocols. groups 1 and 2: teeth were etched with 37% phosphoric acid for 30 seconds and 11 buttons were bonded with light-cured transbond xt (3m unitek, monrovia, calif, usa) and 11 buttons with the tissue adhesive (epiglu, meyer- haake, wehrheim, germany), respectively. groups 3 and 4: teeth were etched with 37% phosphoric acid for 5 seconds and the same numbers of buttons were also bonded with transbond xt and the tissue adhesive. a universal test machine was used for measurements of in vitro shear bond strengths. results: analysis of variance showed significant differences between the mean shear bond strengths of the groups at the p < .001 level of significance. group 4 showed significantly lower bond strength values than the other three groups. the adhesive remnant index scores indicated that the tissue adhesive groups predominantly failed at the enamel-adhesive interface, whereas the failure site was frequently at the bracketadhesive interface for the composite resin. conclusion: although the tissue adhesive is not a suitable bonding material for routine orthodontic practice, its potential for use as a bonding agent on impacted teeth could be improved.