Methods: Thirty two 4.8mm x 2.5mm zirconia cylinder specimens were bonded to composite resin base and were divided into 4 groups (n=8) according to application of different resin luting systems: Superbond C&B group, Panavia F group, Multilink Automix group, and Resicem group. Another 8 glass-ceramic specimens in same size were used as control group that is also bonded to resin base by luting cement of Multilink Automix. All the specimens were put into water baths for 5000 thermocycles fatigue test between 5°C and 55°C before the measuring of shear bond strength. Then electromicroscopy was used to observe the fracture interface of de-bonded specimens.
Results: The shear bond strength of Superbond group showed the highest value between resin and zirconia (32.22+3.73MPa) among the experiment groups and it had no significant difference with control group (37.71+8.36MPa); The shear bond strength of other 3 resin luting systems were lower than the control group (MPa), while no significant difference was observed among Panavia group (21.03+2.97Mpa), Multilink group (18.22+2.58Mpa) and Resicem group (23.32+4.45Mpa). All the de-bonded surface of zirconia specimens had resin remained, but that using Superbond C&B showed similar behaviour with control group that had cohesive failure in the resin bulk.
Conclusion: The resin bond strength on surface of zirconia ceramic was lower than that of glass-ceramic; The shear bond strength of resin-zirconia was significantly higher in group of Superbond C&B (the 4-META-containing resin luting system) than that in other 3 groups. Superbond C&B had relative good behaviour of adhesive failure. The long term bond strength of these systems is not confirmed yet.