Reconsidering the double etching of enamel: do self-etching primers contaminate phosphoric acid-etched enamel?

Purpose: To evaluate the composite-to-enamel bond following double etching of the enamel using phosphoric acid and different self-etching (SE) bonding systems with and without the application of their respective acidic primers. Materials and Methods: The enamel surfaces of 90 human molars were ground (600 grit) flat and randomly divided into nine groups (n = 10). Three two-step SE systems (AdheSE, ASE; Clearfil SE Bond, CSE; OptiBond Solo Plus SE, OSE) were tested, both with and without primer application on enamel pre-etched with phosphoric acid under dry bonding conditions. As the controls, the SE systems were applied according to their original directions without pre-etching. All the specimens were built up with a microhybrid composite resin (Arabesk Top). After water storage for 24 h at 37°C, the bonded specimens were sheared to failure in the Zwicki 1120. Etching and failure patterns were evaluated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Shear bond strength was analyzed with two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s test. Failure modes were analyzed with Fisher’s exact test. Results: Without pre-etching, CSE showed significantly higher bond strengths than ASE and OSE (p 0.05), 36% for CSE (p < 0.05), and 75% for OSE (p < 0.05). SEM analysis showed that omission of the priming step significantly increased the number of cohesive failures within the resin for OSE (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: Additional etching with phosphoric acid before the application of SE systems does not necessarily result in better enamel bonding, since unavoidable primer contamination of the pre-etched enamel was shown to significantly reduce the bond strength for two of the three systems tested.