Research Article An In Vitro Comparative Study of the Adaptation and Sealing Ability of Two Carrier-Based Root Canal Obturators

Copyright © 2013 Ahmed Alkahtani et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The study was done to assess the sealing ability and adaptation of RealSeal 1, and to compare it with Thermafil. 65 single-rooted extracted teeth were selected and root canal treatment was performed. Root canals were obturated with RealSeal 1 or Thermafil. A double chamber bacterial leakage model using E. faecalis was developed to assess the sealing ability. Samples were monitored daily for 60 days. After the bacterial leakage test, samples were embedded in resin and sectioned horizontally at 2 and 4mm from the apical foramen. Specimenswere examined under scanning electronmicroscope and digitally photographed.AutoCADsoftwarewas used tomeasure the gap between the canal surface and obturationmaterial. Results were statistically analyzed using nonparametric Kaplan-Meier survival analysis for the bacterial leakage and t-test to compare the means of gap in RealSeal 1 and Thermafil at 2 and 4mm. There was no significant difference between the RealSeal 1 and Thermafil with respect to leakage over time. At 2mm and 4mm, RealSeal 1 had significantly more gaps than Thermafil. From the observations it can be concluded that RealSeal 1 and Thermafil have comparable performance in terms of adaptation and sealing ability. 1