Evaluation of Antibacterial Efficiency of Different Root Canal Disinfection Techniques in Primary Teeth.

BACKGROUND

A successful primary root canal treatment depends on effective shaping and cleaning the root canal system and finally filling it with a hermetic sealer. Clinically, roots of primary teeth are difficult to shape and the irrigation/disinfection protocol has great importance on prognosis.

OBJECTIVE

The present study evaluated the antibacterial efficiency of Endosafe (Orangedental GmbH & Co. KG), photo-activated disinfection (PAD; Orangedental GmbH & Co. KG), diode laser (Epic 10; Biolase, Inc.), ozone (O, Ozonytron; Biozonix, München, Germany), and sodium hypochloride applications in primary root canals that were infected with Enterococcus faecalis after standard mechanical instrumentation.

METHODS

The study was conducted on roots of 100 human primary molar teeth, which were extracted due to excessive caries. The roots were divided in 5 groups with 15 roots in each root disinfection protocol. In addition, 15 samples and 10 samples served as positive and negative controls, respectively. The Shapiro-Wilk test, the Kruskal-Wallis test and then by post hoc group comparisons with the Bonferroni-adjusted Mann-Whitney U test (unpaired observations) was used.

RESULTS

Sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) exhibited the highest antibacterial effect (0 colony-forming units per mL). Diode laser irradiation was statistically more effective than the ozone, PAD, and Endosafe groups (p < 0.001). Endosafe, PAD, and ozone groups showed similar antibacterial effect (p > 0.05). Although not statistically significant, the Endosafe was more effective in reducing the bacterial count when compared with ozone and PAD.

CONCLUSIONS

The five tested irrigation systems were shown to be effective in disinfection of the E. faecalis-contaminated primary root canals and best results were obtained with 2.5% NaOCl and diode laser.