Resin-bonding to amalgam or composite

A final years student had been told conflicting things about whether or not he could bond a resin-bonded bridge onto a composite inlay. He was (and may still be) confused. Can we bond a bridge (with palatal-occlusal coverage) onto a composite inlay?

Southern Cross Dental Labs http://bit.ly/hLZwOk

We can do anything. But how long will it last?

The gold standard for resin bonded bridges would appear to be bonding to enamel - that's what the resins are designed to bond to. So the question for me in deciding if bonding to composite or amalgam is: does it last as long as when we bond to enamel?

I therefore did a search on Pubmed this evening using the terms below (you'll have to reverse them - I started at the bottom). From the 200 articles at the top of this list I was unable to find any studies that compared bridges bonded to enamel and bridges bonded to either composite or amalgam.

Therefore, it would appear that we have little evidence to say whether bonding to amalgam and composite is better, worse or the same as bonding to enamel. Sorry about that.

#20	Search (#18) AND #9 Limits: Clinical Trial, Meta-Analysis, Practice Guideline, Randomized Controlled Trial, Review	14:59:45	200
#19	Search (#18) AND #9	14:53:12	1244
#18	Search ((((((#17) OR #15) OR #14) OR #13) OR #12) OR #11) OR #10	14:52:20	178206
#17	Search "Dental Restoration, Permanent"[Mesh]	14:51:49	32466
#15	Search compomer	14:50:44	541
#14	Search glass-ionomer	14:50:36	5778
#13	Search restoration	14:50:17	71560
#12	Search filling	14:50:04	39468
#11	Search composite	14:49:47	62358
#10	Search amalgam	14:49:41	9343
#9	Search (((((#3) OR #4) OR #5) OR #6) OR #7) OR #8	14:48:44	2303
#8	Search resin AND retained AND prosthesis	14:47:59	351
#7	Search resin AND fixed AND prosthesis	14:47:30	1595
#6	Search Maryland AND bridge	14:47:04	481
#5	Search resin AND retained AND bridge	14:46:43	19
#4	Search resin AND bonded AND bridge	14:46:09	206
#3	Search "Denture, Partial, Fixed, Resin-Bonded"[Mesh]	14:45:41	514