Excess adhesive flash upon bracket placement. A typodont study comparing APC PLUS and Transbond XT.
OBJECTIVE
To determine if there is any significant difference in excess adhesive flash (EAF) with the use of APC PLUS adhesive coated appliance system and Transbond XT and if other variables such as side of the mouth, time taken to bond the brackets, the age of the orthodontic specialist, or the years of clinical experience affected the amount of EAF.


METHODS
Twenty orthodontic specialists bonded 20 preadjusted straight wire brackets (Victory, 3M Unitek) on a typodont with a Class I crowded malocclusion in a split-mouth design, with one-half of the brackets bonded with APC PLUS adhesive system and the other half with Transbond XT. The teeth were sputter coated with gold and an image was taken at 32x magnification in a scanning electron microscope (Philips XL30). The resultant tagged image file (TIF) was opened in AnalySIS Pro 3.1 (Soft Imaging System, Munich, Germany) and the area of EAF was measured.


RESULTS
t-Tests demonstrated that: (1) there was no statistically significant difference in EAF between two adhesives when bonding in different quadrants of dentition; and (2) there was no statistically significant difference in EAF between two adhesives overall. Analysis of variance models demonstrated there were no statistically significant differences found regarding the age of the orthodontic specialists, years of clinical experience, and time in performing the bonding.


CONCLUSIONS
The addition of a coloring agent to assist in the visualization of the excess adhesive does not reduce the amount of excessive adhesive around orthodontic brackets.
Armstrong
David
D
Department of Orthodontics, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Shen
Gang
G
Petocz
Peter
P
Darendeliler
M Ali
MA
D000269:Adhesives / Q000737:chemistry*; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001840:Dental Bonding / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D003738:Dental Cements / Q000737:chemistry*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D003765:Models, Dental; D016910:Orthodontic Brackets; D019279:Resin Cements / Q000737:chemistry*; D013997:Time Factors; D014075:Tooth Discoloration / Q000209:etiology*
D000269:Adhesives; D003738:Dental Cements; D019279:Resin Cements; C477790:Transbond XT; C472247:accelerated Portland cement