The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of curing methods of adhesive resins and resin cements in the root canal. Crown portions of 32 single-rooted mandibular premolars were removed. Routine endodontic treatment was done, and 9 mm deep post spaces were prepared within root canals. No. 3 FRC Postec posts (Ivoclar-Vivadent AG, Liechtenstein) were cemented in the post spaces by self-(SC) or light-curing (LC) using two dual-cured adhesives (Adper Scotchbond multi-purpose plus and Exite DSC )and resin cements (RelyX ARC and Variolink II). They were assigned to 4 groups (n=8); R-SC, R-LC, V-SC, V-LC group.

After stored in distilled water for 24 hours, each root was transversally sectioned with 1.5 mm thick and made three slices. The specimens were subjected to push-out test in a universal testing machine (EZ Test, Shimadzu Co., Japan) with a crosshead speed of 1 mm/min. The data were analyzed with repeated ANOVA and one-way.

ANOVA. Also the interface of post-resin cement and resin cement-canal wall of each group was observed under FE-SEM.

When fiber posts were cemented into the root canal using total-etch adhesives, the bond strength and adaptation between post and root canal dentin was affected by curing method. Self-cure of adhesives and resin cements showed higher bond strength and closer adaptation than light-cure of them.

The fracture toughness test is believed as a clinically relevant method for assessing the fracture resistance of the dentinal restoratives. The objectives of this study were to measure the fracture toughness (K_1C) and microtensile bond strength of dentin-resin composite interface and compare their relationship for their use in evaluation of the integrity of the dentin-resin bond.

A minimum of six short-rod specimens for fracture toughness test and fifteen specimens for microtensile bond strength test was fabricated for each group of materials used. After all specimens storing for 24 hours in distilled water at 37℃, they were tensile-loaded with an EZ tester universal testing machin. Statistical analysis was performed using ANOVA and Tukey's test at the 95% confidence level, Pearson's coefficient was used to verify the correlation between the mean of fracture toughness and microtensile bond strength. FE-SEM was employed on fractured surface to describe the crack propagation.

Fracture toughness value of Clearfil SE Bond (SE) was the highest, followed by Adper Single Bond 2 (SB), OptiBond Solo (OB), ONE-STEP PLUS (OS), ScotchBond Multi-purpose (SM) and there was significant difference between SE and other 4 groups (p < 0.05). There were, however, no significant difference among SB, OB, OS, SM (p > 0.05). Microtensile bond strength of SE was the highest, followed by SB, OB, SM, OS and OS only showed significant lower value (p < 0.05). There was no correlation between fracture toughness and microtensile bond strength values. FE-SEM examination revealed that dentin bonding agent showed different film thickness and different failure pattern according to the film thickness.

From the limited results of this study, it was noted that there was statistically no correlation between K1C and µTBS. We can conclude that for obtaining the reliability of bond strength test of dentin bonding agent, we must pay more attention to the test procedure and its profound scrutiny.