Debonding of adhesively restored deep Class II MOD restorations after functional loading

Purpose: To assess debonding due to functional loading at the cervical dentin margins of deep Class II MOD restorations prepared with a variety of adhesive restoratives in endodontically-treated teeth. Materials and Methods: MOD preparations and endodontic treatment were carried out on extracted sound maxillary premolars. The cavities were restored with seven material combinations: Three different resin-based composites (RBC) (Z100, Herculite XRV or Clearfil RP with their respective bonding systems); two bonded amalgam combinations (Valiant with Superbond D or with Panavia 21) and two sandwich combinations [the RBC Tetric with the polyacid-modified RBC (compomer) Compoglass or Z100 with the resin-modified glass ionomer Fuji II LC]. For each group, half of the samples were exposed to mechanical functional loading and the other half served as control. Imperfect bond formation and debonding due to loading was determined by dye penetration. In addition, the dye penetration scores were correlated with the cusp fracture strengths of similarly prepared restorations of a previous study. Results: After functional loading, the RBC in combination with hybridizing dentin bonding agents showed better preservation of marginal integrity than the sandwich restorations, which in turn performed better than the amalgam restorations (P < 0.05). Debonding correlated with reduction in fracture resistance. Under the conditions of this study, debonding of adhesive MOD restorations by functional loading can best be prevented by using RBC in combination with hybridizing dentin-bonding systems.