Find out why Troy Schmedding, DDS, likes CLEARFIL™ Universal Bond Quick 2 dental adhesive and why other clinicians should give it a try.
No matter how great a dental material’s capabilities are, clinicians are not going to want to use it regularly if it doesn’t handle well in their hands.
A dental adhesive, for instance, needs to apply easily and quickly to score points with dentists, who have several choices when it comes to inventorying dental materials.
Troy Schmedding, DDS, who maintains a private practice in Walnut Creek, California, has grown to trust products from Kuraray Noritake Dental, so he had high expectations when the company released CLEARFIL™ Universal Bond Quick 2 dental adhesive earlier this year. The product was officially launched in May 2024 at the CDA Presents the Art + Science of Dentistry annual session, but Dr Schmedding started using it a couple months prior to the launch.
“One of the great things you get with [CLEARFIL] Universal Bond Quick 2 is basically the simplicity,” Dr Schmedding says. “The evolution of CLEARFIL Universal Bond Quick 2 has come about in obviously, a time when universal adhesives are extremely well used. I'm sure they’re used in well over 50% of dental offices in the United States.”
One issue with some of these popular universal adhesives is that the directions can be difficult to follow, or too time-consuming. This is not the case with this latest offering from Kuraray.
CLEARFIL Universal Bond Quick 2
Formulated from a custom blend of the 10-Methacryloyloxydecyl dihydrogen phosphate (MDP) monomer originally developed by Kuraray Noritake, along with Amide, and Urethane Tetramethacrylate (UTM), CLEARFIL Universal Bond Quick 2 is a single-bottle adhesive system that can be applied quickly, without the need for an activation step. The adhesive forms an immediate bond to both dentin and enamel while also creating a thin, uniform adhesive layer that avoids pooling, which allows for stronger, more consistent bonds. CLEARFIL Universal Bond Quick 2 is suited for use with a range of direct and indirect restorative approaches including light-cured composites, and self-adhesive cements. When used with self-adhesive resin cements, a separate activator is not needed.
The adhesive is available in either bottle or unit-dose delivery solutions, allowing individual practices to stock their preferred adhesive format.
“What I mean by simplicity is that a lot of the universal bond adhesives come with directions, they come with an extensive direction formulation,” Dr Schmedding explains. “So, that could be an application time of 10 to 15 seconds; air thin for 10 seconds, and then light cure for 20 seconds, which is fine. I think the results are good with those materials.”
Problems develop, however, when clinicians don’t follow the directions closely.
“I think it comes down to a situation where you've got a lot of dentists that probably don't follow instruction very well when applying, right?” he adds “I mean, that's a well-known thing, so maybe they aren't applying for the necessary time. I think Universal Bond Quick 2 hits that mark for a lot of people in the sense that it's a quick application time and it's a very thin material. So, it thins out very, very well and one of the benefits of that is simply for seating of indirect restorations. It's a very thin film layer. So, what you get is easy application for indirect restorations.”
Dr Schmedding says the bond strength stays in line with Kuraray’s reputation of consistently delivering strong bonds, and so he’s confident the prosthesis will seat completely. But another big plus from the single-bottle adhesive system is the quick, easy application that does not involve mastering a long list of instructions.
“I think a quick application time is important in today's world because not enough people follow the directions from the dental adhesive companies,” he adds. “Those companies’ adhesives are wonderful. They just take a longer period of time.”
Having used popular products like CLEARFIL SE Bond and SE Protect for years with great results, Dr Schmedding is not at all surprised that the company’s latest adhesive delivers the same qualities.
“With Kuraray you're obviously getting a reputation. You're getting the history that precedes this company,” he adds. “For many, many years, I've used [CLEARFIL] SE Bond and I've used SE Protect, working my way from the sixth generation up now to the universal adhesives. I think the reputation behind, you know, the MDP monomer and the whole situation that is created as universal adhesive is based, in my opinion, truly off Kuraray and what they accomplished many, many moons ago in creation of that MDP monomer.”
Kuraray was the original creator of the MDP monomer and other dental companies followed suit and implemented it in their products.
The California dentist says he still uses the company’s traditional SE Protect in combination with universal adhesives with about half of his restorative cases. He’s aware of the growing number of universal adhesive choices on the market, but likes the confidence he gets from working with Kuraray products.
“We see all these tremendous amounts of universal adhesives that have hit the market because they knew about MDP. They knew about what Kuraray had,” Dr Schmedding says. “You know the reputation is there, the research is there. You know the research is dedicated to SE Bond, and what it’s done in terms of a sixth-generation gold standard. I think reputation is huge and that's why I stand by a lot of what I utilize in relationship to Kuraray.”
CLEARFIL Universal Bond Quick 2 is suited for use with a variety of direct and indirect restorative approaches including light-cured composites, and self-adhesive cements. When the material is used in combination with Panavia SA Universal, there is no need for a separate activator.
Kuraray has a long history of developing quality materials. The company introduced the first adhesive monomer in dental history by inventing the phosphate monomer Phenyl-P in 1976. This paved the way for the company’s PANAVIA line, featuring the MDP monomer, which was introduced as a high-performance adhesive resin cement for the cementation to tooth structure and to metals. Several bonding agents, cements and composites have followed, but not before Kuraray’s team thoroughly tests everything out.
“I think they're pretty slow to come to market because they really do take the time to run it through the gauntlet of tests, so to speak, to get that result that they're looking for,” Dr Schmedding says. “So, you don't see a tremendous amount of change in the products with Kuraray. They're very streamlined and they're very predictable and it's based off their research and the chemistry.”
Strength and Ease of Use The easy application of the material is a feature that Dr Schmedding can’t highlight enough. “One of the great things, one of the easiest things about this material is just the application. It's really, it's foolproof, right?,” he says. ‘It's got great viscosity; it covers all surfaces with very little pooling that can affect the corners of the restorations because it has such a low film thickness.”
Dr Schmedding often uses Universal Bond Quick 2 in combination with PANAVIA SA Cement, something he’s utilized for years with the previous Universal Bond Quick products, and a process that delivered long-last results.
One of the little known things is that you can use Universal Bond Quick, air thin the material, and you don't have to cure the restoration with the PANAVIA SA Cement, according to Dr Schmedding.
“What you've got within that material is a direct catalyst that will begin setting that material upon application or contact, which is a great thing too, in terms of ensuring complete restoration seating. So, you get this self-cure, auto polymerization effect that will occur in combination with the bonding agent. It's really a game changer for me—and I've been doing that for many years with the predecessor of Universal Bond Quick. I can say we've got hundreds and hundreds of restorations that are still yet to come out. I really like the versatility and the functionality they've created with that material, in combination with their own line of products.”
Highly Recommended Dr Schmedding reiterates that universal adhesives are so prominent in today’s dental practices that you must find one that you know will work and one that gives you fast, easy applications. He’s found this with the latest offering from Kuraray.
“I cannot recommend a greater product, especially with the amount of adhesive dentistry that's going on in this world,” he says. “You've got to have the bread and butter, and the bread and butter starts with your bonding agent. The reliability, predictability is built into this 1-bottle system so if handled well and treated well, you'll get great results.”
