electrochemical technique to study sealability of five root canal sealers

ABSTRACT

An in-vitro study was undertaken to investigate the sealing ability andleakage of five different commercial endodontic sealers by an electrochemicaltechnique. The roots of freshly extracted single rooted teeth were selectedand the root canals were biomechanically prepared. The roots were dividedinto five groups, six roots for each group. For group VI, only two roots wereused as positive control with no gutta-percha and no sealer. The degree ofmicroleakage was tested over a period of 30 days by an electrochemicaltechnique, depending on the flow of an electric current between two pieces ofmetal immersed in an electrolyte. The magnitude of the followed current wasdirectly proportional to the degree of the leakage. The study concluded that the large variation in leakage currents in case of positive controls can be attributed to the variation in root surfaces. There is a variation of leakage within the different five root canal sealers not only due to the different physical properties of the root canal sealers but also due to the variation between teeth roots