Class IV preparations for fractured anterior teeth restored with composite resin restorations
Hani Eid / George E.White

Pediatric dentists play a major role in treating most of the anterior teeth fractures due to the fact that most patients who suffer such traumatic injuries are between the ages of seven and fourteen. Several techniques has been developed to restore the fractured incisors to the original shape and color, these include full-coverage of the traumatized tooth, or restoring the incisors with a resin. The purpose of this study is to find the ideal combination of tooth preparation and restorative material, namely, to determine if stair step chamfer preparations provide more retention in class IV restorations than the plain chamfer preparation technique when restored with a combination of a hybrid composite resin and a microfilled composite resin. This was done by comparing the shear strength values between the buccal stair-step chamfer preparation, and a modification on it (buccal and lingual stair-step chamfer preparation) and the plain chamfer preparation techniques in class IV restorations on anterior incisors using different composite resin materials. The Instron machine was used to test shear strength.
One hundred and two bovine incisor teeth were freshly harvested from the slaughterhouse.

The teeth were prepared and restored according to the following six groups; Plain Chamfer preparation with Tetric Ceram Composite, Plain Chamfer preparation with Renamel Composite, buccal stair-step chamfer preparation with Tetric Ceram composite, buccal stair-step chamfer preparation with Renamel composite, Buccal and lingual stair-step preparation with Tetric Ceram Composite, Buccal and lingual stair-step chamfer preparation with renamel composite. All samples were fractured using the Instron testing machine then the surface area were measured using Image-J software. Shear strength for every sample was calculated using the load numeric result from the Instron machine and the measured surface area.
The Two-Factorial (AB) Analysis of Variance For Independent Samples showed that the buccal
stair-step chamfer preparation showed significantly higher shear strength and fracture resistance than plain chamfer or the buccal and lingual stair-step chamfer preparation. The combination of Renamel Hybrid and Renamel Microfill composite materials showed better results than the Tetric Ceram composite when used with all three preparation techniques, but did not show a statistical significance.
It was concluded that buccal stair-step preparation technique provided the ideal preparation technique with bonded composite resins in fractured anterior teeth. Only 7% of the entire sample size had an adhesion failure versus 93% that had cohesion failure. There was no significant difference in shear strength, between the restorative materials used, in conjunction with all the preparation techniques.