Effect of post length on endodontically treated teeth: analyses of tensile strength

ABSTRACT

Aim: This study compared the tensile strength of endodontically treated teeth restored withdifferent posts and cores with different post lengths. Methods: Sixty extracted intact canines wererandomly divided into 6 groups. Groups CP1, CP2 and CP3 were restored with custom cast postand-core and groups PF1, PF2 and PF3 were restored with prefabricated post and compositeresin core, with different combinations of post length of 5,0 mm, 7.5 mm and 10 mm, respectively(n = 10). All teeth were restored with a total metal crown. A tensile loading was applied at a 180-degree angle to the long axis until failure. Results: The 2-way analysis of variance (á=0.05)showed statistically significant difference (p<0.001) among the groups. However, when the meanfracture forces for the groups were compared (Groups 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 134.5 N (34.2), 178.9N(40.1), 271,5 N (55.9), 161.7 N (22.0), 216.1 N (42.0) and 257.9 N (41.0), respectively), nosignificant differences could be detected among the groups restored with prefabricated post andcast post-and-core. It was found significant differences when it was compared the different lengthsfor each type of post (p<.05). Conclusions: This study showed that increasing post lengthsignificantly increased the tensile strength of prefabricated posts and cast post-and-core used inendodontically treated teeth. On the other hand, significant differences were not found whencomparing endodontically treated teeth restored with custom cast post-and-cores or pre-fabricatedposts and composite resin cores with the same post length.