(PR148) The Efficacy of Organic Debris Removal of Two Irrigation Systems Evaluated by a New Chairside Quantitative Assay for Debridement of Root Canals

Introduction: This study assessed the organic debris removal ability of 2 irrigation systems in teeth with single canals using a novel chairside quantitative assay, the Endocator, which is used to measure remaining intracanal organic residues.

Methods: The root canals from extracted mandibular and maxillary single canal teeth were cut to a standard length of 18mm and shaped to a final size of 30.04 using ProShape Cyclone NiTi files and irrigated with 5.25% NaOCl prior to autoclaving and inoculation. After inoculation of samples with E. faecalis for 3 weeks, teeth were randomly assigned to two groups, 1) Activation of 5.25% NaOCL using Passive Ultrasonic Activation for 1 minute (n=20) or, 2) the XP-3D Finisher (n=20). The Endocator (Endocator Inc, Aptos, CA, USA) was used before and after irrigation protocols from both groups to determine the amount of organic residues present before and after final irrigation for comparison purposes.

Results: The Endocator raw score correlates well with the number of bacteria present by CFU counts. The amount of organic residue remaining from PUI protocol and XP-3D Finisher protocol were approximately 1.7% and 1.2% respectively. No statistically significant differences were observed when comparing the amount of organic residue remaining in the canals after irrigation between protocols using the Mann-Whitney U test.

Conclusion: Although the XP-3D Finisher had more consistent results, both systems performed similarly in debris removal of a root canal system after final irrigation. No tooth was completely cleaned by either of the tested systems.