A study to compare the cleaning efficiency of three different irrigation devices at different root canal levels : an in vitro study

Abstract EN

Background: Irrigation of the canal system permits removal of residual tissue in the canal anatomy that cannot be reached by instrumentation of the main canals so the aim of this study was to compare and evaluate the efficiency of conventional irrigation system, Vibringe sonic irrigation system and Endovac irrigation system in removing of dentin debris at three levels of root canals and to compare the percentage of dentin debris among the three levels for each irrigation system.

Materials and methods: Forty-five extracted premolars with approximately straight single root canals were randomly distributed into 3 test groups of 15 teeth each.

All canals were prepared with Protaper Universal hand files to size #F4, and irrigated with 2.5% NaOCl 1ml between files and 5ml for 60 seconds as a final irrigant by different irrigation devices; group one, by using conventional system; group two, by using Vibringe sonic irrigation system and group three, by using the Endovac system.

After the final irrigation, the roots were split longitudinally and photographed with a digital camera.

The roots were magnified to 100X; a percentage of debris was calculated for the apical 0-3, 3- 6 and 6-9 mm.

The debris score was calculated as a percentage of the total area of the canal that contained debris as determined by pixels in Adobe PhotoshopCS2.

Data were analyzed statistically by ANOVA and LSD at 5% significant level.

Results: when comparing the debris remaining, both the Endovac and Vibringe groups showed significantly less debris than the conventional group at all three levels (p < 0.01).

The Endovac group showed significantly less debris than the Vibringe group at 3-9 mm levels while no significant difference found between the Endovac system and Vibringe system at apical 0-3mm .The apical 0-3 mm showed significantly more debris than both the 3-6 and 6-9 mm for all groups.

Conclusion: the EndoVac system showed a higher cleaning capacity of the canal at all levels, followed by the protocols that used Vibringe sonic irrigation system.

The conventional irrigation system with maxi-i-probe needles showed inferior results.

The apical three millimeters showed a greater amount of debris than the 3-9 millimetres from the working length, regardless of the irrigation device used.