Assessment of shear bond strength of brackets bonded by direct and indirect techniques: An in vitro study

Objective: This in vitro study was designed to evaluate the shear bond strength (SBS) of orthodontic metal brackets bonded by direct and indirect techniques. Methods: Thirty healthy human maxillary premolar teeth were used. The teeth were divided into three groups of 10 teeth each: Group I – Indirect bonding with Sondhi™ Rapid-Set system (3M/Unitek), Group II – Indirect bonding with Transbond™ XT adhesive system (3M/Unitek) and Group III – Direct bonding with Transbond™ XT Adhesive system (3M/Unitek). After bonding and obtaining the specimens for the study, the specimens were subjected to SBS testing in a universal testing machine (Emic, model DL – 500). The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was applied to ascertain that the data had a normal distribution and the Bartlett test to check whether there was homogeneity of variance. One-factor analysis of variance was performed and, subsequently, Tukey’s test for paired means. A 5% significance level was adopted. Results: The results of Group I were 67.6 (N) and 5.9 (MPa), Group II, 68.9 (N) and 6.1 (MPa) and Group III (control) 92.5 (N) and 8.1 (MPa). Conclusion: It can therefore be concluded that the means for Group III were significantly higher compared with groups I and II in both Newton (N) and Mega Pascal (MPa) values. The means attained by the indirect bonding technique used in Groups I and II, however, exhibited no statistically significant differences.