This study was conducted to evaluate the influence of the C-factor on the bond strength of a 6th generation self-etching system by measuring the microtensile bond strength of four types of restorations classified by different C-factors with an identical depth of dentin.

Eighty human molars were divided into four experimental groups, each of which had a C-factor of 0.25, 2, 3 or 4. Each group was then further divided into four subgroups based on the adhesive and composite resin used. The adhesives used for this study were AQ Bond Plus (Sun Medical, Japan) and Xeno III (DENTSPLY, Germany). And composite resins used were Fantasista (Sun Medical, Japan) and Ceram-X mono (DENTSPLY, Germany).

The results were then analyzed using one-way ANOVA, a Tukey's test, and a Pearson's correlation test and were as follows.

There was no significant difference among C-factor groups with the exception of groups of Xeno III and Ceram-X mono (p < 0.05).

It was concluded that the C-factor of cavities does not have a significant effect on the microtensile bond strength of the restorations when cavities of the same depth of dentin are restored using composite resin in conjunction with the 6th generation self-etching system.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of cavity shape, bond quality of bonding agent and volume of resin composite on shrinkage stress developed at the cavity floor. This was done by measuring the shear bond strength with respect to iris materials (cavity shape; adhesive-coated dentin as a high C-factor and Teflon-coated metal as a low C-factor), bonding agents (bond quality; Scotchbond™ Multi-purpose and Xeno®III) and iris hole diameters (volume; 1 mm or 3 mm in diameter × 1.5 mm in thickness). Ninety-six molars were randomly divided into 8 groups (2 × 2 × 2 experimental setup). In order to simulate a Class I cavity, shear bond strength was measured on the flat occlusal dentin surface with irises. The iris hole was filled with Z250 restorative resin composite in a bulk-filling manner. The data was analyzed using three-way ANOVA and the Tukey test. Fracture mode analysis was also done. When the cavity had high C-factor, good bond quality and large volume, the bond strength decreased significantly. The volume of resin composite restricted within the well-bonded cavity walls is also be suggested to be included in the concept of C-factor, as well as the cavity shape and bond quality. Since the bond quality and volume can exaggerate the effect of cavity shape on the shrinkage stress developed at the resin-dentin bond, resin composites must be filled in a method, which minimizes the volume that can increase the C-factor.

The aim of this study was to measure the cusp deflection during composite restoration for MOD cavity in premolar and to examine the influence of cavity dimension, C-factor and restoration method on the cusp deflection.

Thirty extracted maxillary premolar were prepared to four different sizes of MOD cavity and divided into six groups. The width and depth of the cavity were as follows. Group 1; 1.5 × 1 mm, Group 2; 1.5 × 2 mm, Group 3; 3 × 1 mm, and Group 4-6; 3 × 2 mm respectively. Group 1-4 were restored using bulk filling method with Z-250 composite. However, Group 5 was restored incrementally, and Group 6 was restored with an indirect resin inlay.

The cusp deflection was recorded at the buccal and lingual cusp tips using LVDT probe for 10,000 seconds. The measured cusp deflections were compared between groups, and the relationship between the cube of the length of cavity wall/the cube of the thickness of cavity wall (L³ / T³), C-factor and cusp deflection or %flexure (100 × cuspal deflection / cavity width) was analyzed.

The cusp deflection of Group 1-4 were 12.1 µm, 17.2 µm, 16.2 µm and 26.4 µm respectively. The C-factor was related to the %flexure rather than the cusp deflection. There was a strong positive correlationship between the L³ / T³ and the cusp deflection. The cusp deflection of Group 5 and 6 were 17.4 µm and 17.9 µm respectively, which are much lower value than that of Group 4.