Effects of Ionizing Radiation on the Shear Bond Strength of Composite Materials to Dentin
and Ana Ivanišević 3,*
Aspasia Sarafianou
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease add a comment in the discussion on the potential effect of thermocycling on the SBS.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. It is revised as suggested. The comment about the potential effect of thermocycling on the SBS is added in the discussion and highlighted in revised version.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper discusses an interesting topic, Effects of Ionizing Radiation on the Shear Bond Strength of Composite Materials to Dentin. We need to take care of patients who have undergone radiation therapy for dental hygiene and caries treatment. It is important to know the degradation of resin bond by radiation. I mention several comments to the manuscript as follows.
It's common to compare different adhesives to evaluate bonding performance. In this study, however, only one type of adhesive was used. Could authors clarify the rationale for using two different resin composites? Since no significant difference was observed between the two materials, it seems even more unnecessary to use different resin composites. I think they should do a bonding test with a different type of adhesive.
When the authors bonded the polished dentin surface and materials, which side did they use, the coronal or apical side?
Authors should indicate the non-abbreviated name of “MCAP” and “D3MA”.
Why did you choose 70 Gy radiation? in the introduction, the therapeutic dose is 60 Gy.
In Table 2, "1", "2", and "3" are difficult to understand, so they should be listed as "control", "before restoration", and "after restoration".
In Figure 1, it would be easier to display the contents of Table 1 as a bar chart.
In Figure 3, it is very difficult to understand "X SDR", "X TET", "SDR X", and "TET X". Authors should change these labels.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to review this manuscript. It is revised as suggested and highlighted in re-submitted files.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsRef. manus. jcs-3015147: Effects of Ionizing Radiation on the Shear Bond Strength of Composite Materials to Dentin
The authors describe the effects of ionizing radiation on the shear bond strength of composite materials to dentin.
Abstract:
Line 18: The authors describe that Scotchbond Universal Plus adhesive was used in their study. However, Scotchbond Universal adhesive was written in the introduction (line 78), in materials and methods (line 105), in Table 1, and in the discussion part as well. Please, clarify the punctual name of the tested material.
Line 21: “The difference of the materials” - the concept of the materials should be clarified (materials should be replaced with bulk-fill composites or SDR and TET) for better understanding.
Introduction:
Line 77-78: Please explain more about the novelty of the study. For me, it is not enough that bulk fill composite and Scotchbond Universal have not been tested yet.
Generally, the bulk fill composite is very similar to any other previously tested and published conventional composite (both contain resin matrix and filler). The manufacturers make some material modifications at bulk fill composites (e.g. new initiator, less filler content) to increase the applicable layer thickness by 4 mm. Why was the Scotchbond Universal adhesive chosen among many other universal adhesives? Does it have any material science reason? Maybe it’s composition (competition of Vitrebond copolymer and 10-MDP in bonding mechanism)? If yes, they should compare the results with any other bond capabilities of pure 10-MDP-containing adhesive. Or the effect of ionizing radiation on Ca-10-MDP chemical bonds? This can be examined with XRD method and would increase the scientific content of the manuscript. The ionizing radiation may cause a different change in the adhesion of the bulk fill composite to dentin compared to conventional resin composite? If yes, it can be explained a little more in the discussion.
Materials and methods:
Table 1: At the SDR, the MCAP abbreviation is not explained in the footnote of the table. One space is missing after the photoinitiator word, before the trimethyl word.
The shortening names (like SDR, and TET) should be presented in Table 1.
Line 117: how was the dose determined? Did the authors want to investigate the SBS above the therapeutic dose (60 Gy) as written in line 48? How did the authors ensure that all samples received the same radiation dose? (please see the radiotherapy protocol of this article: OGLAKCI B., BURDUROĞLU D., ERIŞ A.H., MAYADAĞLI A., ARHUN N., 2022: How Does Radiotherapy Affect the Adhesion of Universal Adhesive to Enamel and Dentin? A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis?-ODOVTOS-Int. J. Dental Sc., 24-3 (September-December): 75-90.) Please add this information to the materials and method section.
Line 123: I ask the authors to provide a more precise description of the SBS measurement conditions and UltraTester. What was the set test speed or crosshead speed? Applied load cell capacity? How was the SBS calculated?
Line 126: How much time passed between the radiation and the setting of the composite to dentin? Please describe this part in the manuscript.
Overall, I think one testing method (SBS and the fracture mode is a derived result from SBS) is not enough to analyze the questions of the study. I ask the authors to think about what other test methods could help the understanding of the results and provide more information (SEM, surface roughness, XRD-see later in my report).
Results:
I ask the authors to present the SBS values graphically instead of in a table (Table 2) e.g. bar chart or box plot diagram with error bars and indicate the significance on the graph.
Moreover, I asked the authors to delete the line 141-142. Two different bulk fill composites (SDR and TET) were tested in the study, therefore we cannot draw an average from two different data because of the different composition of bulk fills.
Lines 142-144: Please use decimal dots instead of a comma. It is valid for all text where it is relevant.
Line 151 and 152: Within one sentence the differences, different, and different words were mentioned. Please search for synonyms of different words, or rewrite the sentence.
If the authors present the data on the graph, Table 3 is unnecessary. Additionally, it is not customary to present the results of ANOVA in the manuscript. The description of p values in the text or indicated on the graph is more frequent.
Figure 1 graph format (point and line) is not correct. If the authors present the data on e.g. box plot, Figure 1 is redundant. The measured data points cannot be connected because there is no process on the x-axis (e.g. time or different irradiation dose) but testing groups. I asked the authors to delete the Figure 1.
Line 168: One more space remains after the material word.
Lines 166-168: In this section should be introduced abbreviations ( AD, ACD, ACM, MC) which are used in Figure 3. I ask the authors to use the same letter type (capital or not) and the same mention order in figure legends of Figure 3 and the description between lines 166-168. In Figure 3, the figure legend orders should be modified.
Figure 3: On the x-axis a new abbreviation was introduced (X SDR, X TET, SDR X, and TET X). One marking system should be used in the whole manuscript (group 1, 2, 3, or above-presented codes, but used uniformly).
The numerical data describing of fracture mode is missing from the results section. I asked the authors to describe the numerical values of the registered fracture modes in the text.
In the research study, two different bulk fill composites were adhered to radiated and non-irradiated dentin surfaces. As the authors describe in the introduction, the radiation affects dentin structure. Morphology or topography analysis (SEM or surface roughness measurements) or any other structure analysis of dentin exposed to radiation would help a lot in the explanation and support of results.
Discussion:
Lines 185-186: The decrease was not significantly lower…-this part of the sentence is incomprehensible. Revision required.
Based on my opinion, the rejection of the null hypothesis is more frequent than the confirmation or acceptation. The wording of the hypothesis should be reconsidered and made clearer, which can be rejected based on the measured data (lines 82-84).
Line 195: it was written: …“unstable species”… the hydroxonium ion, molecular hydrogen and hydrogen-peroxide are stable species compared to radicals (H· and OH·). Please rephrase the sentence.
Line 213: The authors mentioned that the porosity and crystallinity of the dentin reduced on irradiated dentin which contributes to the chemical interaction between adhesive and dentin.
The chemical interaction is also formed on non-irradiated dentin. I request the authors to elaborate or reconsider this part because it seems to me that the decrease in porosity is not a chemical, but a micromechanical effect and this is not clear from this wording. (Perhaps the contributes word is misleading.) This part also requires SEM pictures from irradiated and non-irradiated dentin that support this statement. Moreover, it is very important to see the surface topography and morphology to which we want to adhere.
Line 219: The authors mentioned the increased porosity of the tissue in samples irradiated before restoration. This is contradictory to line 213. Please clarify this section in the manuscript (lines 208-221).
Line 256: The authors describe that the TET contains Bis-GMA monomer and SDR contains TEGDMA monomer. These monomers were not listed in Table 1. I asked the authors to specify the components of tested materials or modify lines 256-257.
05. 06. 2024
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of the English language is required. Conceptual mistakes should be improved.
Author Response
We hereby thank the reviewer for his/her valuable comments and suggestions. We took all the considerations into account and we hope that the manuscript will be suitable for publication in the revised form.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI agree with the comments on thermocycling added to the manuscript.
Author Response
Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI read revised manuscript. I think authors revised their manuscript to be better according to reviewer’s comments.
Author Response
Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Ref. manus. jcs-3015147: Effects of Ionizing Radiation on the Shear Bond Strength of Composite Materials to Dentin
The authors describe the effects of ionizing radiation on the shear bond strength of composite materials to dentin.
Thanks for the improved work of the authors. The manuscript is much improved. I would like to draw the attention of the authors to a few errors:
- - By deleting Table 2 from the first version of the manuscript, the number of specimens was omitted from the text: (n=14-15). It should be added to the materials and method section where the authors consider it appropriate (line 129 or somewhere between lines 150 and 165).
- - Table 1, TET row, chemical formulation: after the filler load word, there is a dash instead of a colon.
- - The corrected null hypothesis was: “The null hypothesis was that irradiation would not significantly affect the bond strength, regardless of the time of irradiation - before or after the restoration. Another null hypothesis was that the differences between the restorative materials would not be significant.” Line 225: The null hypothesis is rejected. The written part between lines 221 and 224 rejected the first part of the null hypothesis.
In lines 187-188, the results justify that the second part of the null hypothesis can also be rejected, however, this rejection is missing from the discussion. I asked the authors to add a rejection of the second part of the null hypothesis.
- - In line 129 CG SDR and CG TET were introduced. In Figure 3 SDR CG and TET CG were used. Please unify them.
- - In my previous report I asked the numerical data describing of fracture mode, similarly to SBS data between line 176-179. The guide for authors write the followings: “Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.” The interpretation of fracture modes is missing from the results part. I ask the authors to add describing results from the fracture mode in the result section.
17.06.2024.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsRef. manus. jcs-3015147: Effects of Ionizing Radiation on the Shear Bond Strength of Composite Materials to Dentin
The authors describe the effects of ionizing radiation on the shear bond strength of composite materials to dentin.
Thanks for the authors' minor correction. I thought of this description when characterizing the fracture modes. One mistype remains in the text:
"In the groups irradiated after restoration, the proportion of adhesive fractures was significantly lower (40% and 30% for SDR and TET, respectively)."
As I checked the data in Figure 13, the adhesive fracture was 13%, not 30%. I ask the authors to correct this data in the text.
25.06.2024.
Author Response
Thank you for your comment. It has been revised as suggested.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 4
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThanks for the authors' minor correction.
