Effect of acid etching on dentin bond strength of ultra-mild self-etch adhesives

Background Nowadays, most of the dental manufacturers claimed that ‘Universal’ or ‘multi-mode’ adhesives in self-etch technique can obtain good bonding results comparing to etch-and-rinse or selective etching application techniques. The rationale behind this study was that a multi-mode adhesive, when proven to be effective, would enable general practitioners to apply the adhesive using either an ‘etch-and-rinse’ or an ‘self-etch’ adhesive mode strategy, basically depending on their interpretation of what appears to be most appropriate upon examination of the actual cavity and the overall restoration conditions.