Effect of pulpal pressure on adhesion of resin composite to dentin: bovine serum versus saline.

The purpose of this study was to compare the tensile bond strengths of resin composite to dentin, mediated by two new bonding systems (Scotchbond Multi-Purpose and Clearfil Liner Bond II), under simulated pulpal pressure when diluted bovine serum or saline was used as the pulpal fluid. The bond strengths of the two bonding systems to dentin (under a pulpal pressure of 15 cm of water) obtained when bovine serum was used were statistically significantly higher than those obtained when saline was used. These data suggest that the primers of these bonding systems decreased the dentinal permeability when the bovine serum pulpal fluid was used through the precipitation of serum proteins by the primers in the dentinal tubules. This may have allowed better penetration of the bonding resin monomers into the conditioned dentinal structure, thus improving the bond strength. These findings support the idea that topical application of dentinal bonding systems may be an effective therapy for treating hypersensitive dentin.