Bond failure rates with a self-etching primer: a randomized controlled trial

The use of self-etching primers is presented as an alternative to shorten the clinical bonding steps. The purpose of this clinical trial was to evaluate over a 12-month period the performance of a self-etching system (Transbond Plus SEP, 3M Unitek - SEP) compared with a conventional multi-step system (Transbond XT, 3M Unitek - TBXT). Twenty-eight randomly selected patients were included in this study, each being randomly assigned to TBXT or SEP group. A total of 548 brackets were bonded following the manufacturers’ instructions, using Transbond XT adhesive paste. The survival rate of brackets were estimated with Kaplan-Meier analysis. Bracket survival distributions with respect to bonding procedure, tooth location, dental arch and patient gender were compared with log-rank test. The failure rates of the TBXT and SEP group were 4.71 and 6.98 per cent respectively. No significant differences in the survival rate were observed between the bonding procedures (p=0.311). When the tooth location, dental arch and patient gender were analysed, only the tooth location was found to be significant. Posterior brackets were more likely to fail than the anterior brackets (p=0.013). Both systems had low bonding failure rates and can be considered adequate for orthodontic bonding needs