Various conditioning methods for root canals influencing the tensile strength of titanium posts

summary Conditioning the root canal is frequently advised to achieve high post‐retention when resin composite luting cements are used. However, manufacturers’ instructions for this purpose differ widely from one another. The aim of this study was to compare the tensile bond strengths of passive, tapered, titanium root posts that were luted with four different resin composite cements (Compolute® Aplicap, Flexi‐Flow cemTM, Panavia® 21 EX, Twinlook®) in the root canals at three conditions, namely (i) no conditioning, (ii) etching with 37% phosphoric acid, and (iii) etching + bonding agent application. Panavia 21 EX was further tested after using the primer for the post‐surface according to the manufacturer's recommendations. The posts luted with zinc phosphate cement (Tenet) acted as the control group. Following endodontic preparation of 140 intact anterior teeth with hand instruments, the post‐spaces were prepared using the opening drills of the corresponding size of the posts. The samples were first stored in water at 37 °C for 24 h and then thermocycled (5000 cycles, 5–55 °C, 30 s). The tensile strength values were measured with the universal testing machine at a crosshead speed of 0·5 mm min−1. The data were analysed statistically using anova and corrected with Scheffé test due to the significance levels (P