Retentive strength, disintegration, and marginal quality of luting cements

This study evaluated the retention of complete crowns by using five different methods of cementation. Complete crowns were prepared with standardized dimensions on extracted human molars. Metal crowns were cast with a high noble gold ceramic alloy and were cemented with zinc phosphate cement, glass ionomer cement, composite resin cement, composite resin cement with a dentinal bonding agent, and adhesive resin cement. The retention was measured by subjecting the specimens to tensile load until fracture occurred. The disintegration was measured according to American Dental Association Specification No. 8, and the condition of the cements at the margins of crowns was analyzed by use of a scanning electron microscope. Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance revealed statistically significant differences between the mean retentive strengths. The retention of the zinc phosphate and the glass ionomer groups was significantly different from that of the adhesive resin group. The retention of the adhesive resin cement was 65% greater than the retention of the composite resin and the composite resin/dentinal bonding agent group, but the Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon rank sum test did not depict this difference as significant. The mean ± SD of the disintegration for the zinc phosphate, the glass ionomer cement, and the composite resin cement was 0.025 ± 0.013, 0.023 ± 0.011, and 0.017 ± 0.001, respectively. The scanning electron microscope analysis of the margins revealed that the composite resin cement was almost intact, the zinc phosphate was subjected to limited disintegration, and the glass ionomer displayed the worst marginal integrity.