• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.269-276
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• 2005

This in vitro study evaluated the influence of a flowable composite resin on the tensile bond strength of resin to enamel and dentin treated with Er:YAG laser and diamond bur. 96 Buccal enamel and mid-coronal dentin were laser-irradiated using an Er:YAG laser and treated with diamond bur. Each groups(48) were divided two small groups depends on acid-etching procedure. Light-cure flowable resin(Metafil Flo) and self-cure resin(Clearfil FII New Bond) were used in this study. After surface etching with 37% phosphoric acid and the application of an adhesive system, specimens were prepared with a hybrid composite resin. After 24hours storage in distilled water at 37$^{\circ}C$, all samples were submitted to the tensile bond strength evaluation, using a universal testing machine(Z020, Zwick, Germany). The obtained results were as follows: 1. TBS of acid-etching group were higher than those of non-etching group in both enamel and dentin treated with Er:YAG laser and diamond bur. Laser 'conditioning' was clearly less effective than acid-etching. Moreover, acid etching lased enamel and dentin significantly improved the microTBS of M-Flo. 2. In enamel, TBS of laser-irradiated group were lower than those of bur-prepared group. However, in flowable resin subgroup, there were not differed those between two groups in dentin. 3. In laser-treated group, TBS of flowable composite resin were higher than those of self-curing resin in dentin, however, there was no difference in enamel. From this study, we can conclude that the self- and light-cure composite resin bonded significantly less effective to lased than to bur-cut enamel and dentin, and that acid-etch procedure remains mandatory even after laser ablation. We suggest that Er:YAG laser was useful for preparing dentin cavity with flowable resin filling.