The aim of this study was to determine the shear bond strength (SBS) levels and fracture modes of different composites used as lingual retainer adhesives. Sixty human mandibular incisors were used, that mounted in acrylic resin leaving the buccal surface of the crowns parallel to the base of the moulds. Randomly three groups were constructed, each containing 20 teeth. Transbond-LR (3M-Uni-tek), Transbond-XT (3M-Unitek) and Venus Flow (Heraeus Kulzer) were tested. Materials were applied to the teeth surface by packing the material into the cylindrical plastic matrices with a 2.34 mm internal diameter and a 3 mm height (Ultradent) to simulate the lingual retainer bonding. For SBS testing, the specimens were mounted in a universal testing machine, and an apparatus (Ultradent) attached to a compression load cell was applied to each of the specimen until the failure occurred. The SBS data were analyzed using analysis of variance and Tukey tests, and chi-square test was used to analyze the fracture modes. The statistical tests indicated that Transbond-LR shows statistically significant higher SBS (24.7±9.25 MPa) then Transbond-XT (12.01±4.98 MPa) and Venus Flow (14.07±5.25 MPa) (P<0.001) whereas the difference between Transbond-XT and Venus Flow was not significant. In general, a greater percentage of the fractures were adhesive at the tooth-composite interface (60%% for Transbond-LR and Venus Flow and 90°% for Transbond-XT) and no statistically significant difference was found between the groups. According to the results of this study, Transbond LR was found to be most appropriate material for the tested specification.

Keywords: Bond strength, lingual retainer