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Tensile Strength of Mineralized/Demineralized Human Normal and Carious Dentin

¹ Department of Operative Dentistry, Study of Biofunctional Recovery and Reconstruction, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine and Dentistry, 2-5-1 Shikatacho, Okayama 700-8525, Japan;
² Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR, China;
³ Department of Oral Biology and Maxillofacial Pathology, School of Dentistry, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA 30912-1129, USA; and
⁴ Office of Biostatistics, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA, USA;

^* corresponding author, dpashley{at}mail.mcg.edu

The bond strengths of resins to caries-affected dentin are low. This could be due to weakened organic matrix. The purpose of this work was to determine if the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of excavated carious dentin is weaker than that of normal dentin. Soft caries was excavated from extracted human molars, and the tooth was vertically sectioned into slabs. Each slab was trimmed to an hourglass shape, parallel or perpendicular to the tubule direction. Half of the specimens were mineralized, while the other half were completely demineralized in EDTA. ANOVA on ranks showed that the three-factor interactions (mineralization, caries, tubule direction) were all significant (p < 0.0001), indicating that mineralization and tubule direction gave different UTS results in normal and caries-affected dentin. No significant differences were seen between the UTS of normal and and that of caries-affected demineralized dentin in the parallel or perpendicular group. The matrix of demineralized caries-affected dentin was as strong as that of normal demineralized dentin when tested in the same direction.

KEY WORDS: dentin • caries • tensile strength • dentinal tubules.