Bond strength and microleakage of self-adhesive and conventional fissure sealants.

The aim of this study was to compare the shear bond strengths (SBS), failure modes (adhesive, cohesive, or mixed), and marginal microleakage occurrence of conventional resin (CR)-based, glass ionomer (GI)-based, and self-adhesive resin (SAR)-based fissure sealants with or without prior phosphoric acid (PA) etching. Fifty extracted premolars were randomly and equally assigned into five groups -G1:PA+CR, G2:PA+GI, G3:GI, G4:PA+SAR, and G5:SAR. Prior PA etching significantly (p<0.05) increased the SBSs of sealants. Adhesive failure mainly occurred in teeth treated with SAR- or GI-based fissure sealants, and cohesive failure mainly occurred in PA-etched teeth. Microleakage occurrence differed significantly (p<0.05) among the five groups of treated teeth. We concluded that conditioning of a tooth's enamel surface is crucial to creating strong bonds and leak-free sealing between tooth and fissure sealant.