Effect of Laser-Assisted Bleaching Technique on Bond Quality of Enamel to Brackets: A Literature Review

Tooth bleaching is known as a non-invasive, cosmetic treatment option. It has been noted that bleaching has a detrimental impact on bond quality of enamel. With increasing adult patients who need multidisciplinary treatments, concurrency of bleaching with other treatments such as composite filling or orthodontic treatment in which bond quality to enamel plays an important role, a dilemma has arisen. This review aimed to evaluate the impact of the laser-assisted bleaching technique on bond quality of enamel to brackets drawn from the available literature.

All original articles that evaluated the effect of laser-assisted bleaching on bond strength of enamel in MEDLINE (NCBI PubMed and PMC), EMBASE, Scopus, Corchane Library, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were assessed until July 2022.

Six in-vitro studies were entered into this review. All of them evaluated bond strength of orthodontic brackets to bleached enamel expect one, in which composite resin bond to bleached enamel was examined. Several laser types including Nd:YAG, Er:YAG, CO2, diode, and LED were used in these studies. A few studies indicated that bond strength of bleached enamel is higher after laser-assisted bleaching compared to the conventional bleaching technique, whereas others did not.

In cases of immediate bonding to bleached enamel, the laser-assisted bleaching approach is recommended. There is still a need for more studies in this field because of the high diversity of laser types, bleaching agents, and type of adhesives that have been introduced to the market recently.