Antioxidant pre-treatments are able to reduce waiting time for restorative treatment after dental bleaching: a microtensile bond strength exploratory study

The aim was to evaluate the effect of different antioxidant agents on the improvement of bond strength to enamel subjected to a whitening procedure. Samples were divided into six groups (n = 10): control; whitening immediately followed by restorative treatment (WHT); whitening and restoration after a 7-day period (WHT_7D); whitening and application of 10% sodium ascorbate (WHT_SA); application of 5% grape seed extract (WHT_GS); and application of 5% green tea (WHT_GT). All groups except for control fwere whitened (Opalescence PF Regular 16%) for 7 days (4 h/day). All samples were restored (Optibond™ FL, Kerr and Filtek™ Z250 composite, 3M ESPE). In antioxidant groups these were applied for 15 min and immediately restored. Specimens were sectioned in microspecimens (1.0 ± 0.2 mm² area) for microtensile bond strength (μTBS) testing (0.5 mm/min) on a universal testing machine. ANOVA test with Brown-Forsythe correction and Games-Howell post-hoc test was used (significance level of 5%). Antioxidant groups presented significant higher mean μTBS values than group WHT (p < 0.001). The non-whitened control group was not significantly different to antioxidant experimental groups. Group WHT_7D exhibited a significantly higher mean μTBS value when compared to group WHT (p = 0.022). The different antioxidants significantly influenced microtensile bond strength of restored teeth after whitening.