Reattachment of Fractured Anterior Teeth—Determining Fracture Strength using Different Techniques: An in vitro Study

Abstract

The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate and compare the shear bond strength of teeth reattached with sixth generation dentin bonding agent: Xeno III and microhybrid resin composite: Esthet-X, using three different techniques: (1) Simple reattachment, (2) overcontour and (3) internal dentinal groove. A total of 70 human maxillary central incisors were selected and divided into four groups as follows. Group I: Control group comprised of 10 samples. Group II: Simple reattachment, group III: Overcontour and group IV: Internal dentinal groove. Groups II, III and IV comprised of 20 samples each. The teeth in three study groups were sectioned using a diamond disk and the fragment was reattached with Esthet-X and Xeno III using three different techniques. Specimens were stored in tap water for 24 hours and shear bond strength was determined using universal testing machine using a knife edge chisel (0.5 mm in cross-section) at a crosshead speed of 1 mm/minute. The results of this study showed following mean value of fracture strength in Kgf: Group I: Control-27.71; group II: Simple reattachment-9.78; group III: Overcontour-24.41; group IV: Internal dentinal groove-23.83. The overcontour technique had the highest strength recovery while the simple reattachment had the lowest. The overcontour technique provided strength recovery almost similar to intact teeth emphasizing that tooth preparation influenced fracture resistance.