Dislodgment Resistance of Bioceramic and Epoxy Sealers: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present systematic review was to evaluate if epoxy resin-based root canal sealers present superior push-out bond strength compared to calcium silicate-based root canal sealers. METHODS: The inclusion criteria consisted of in vitro studies that compared the push-out bond strength of epoxy resin-based and calcium silicate-based sealers. A systematic search was performed in the following databases for articles published until February 2018: PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, and OpenGrey. The quality assessment and data extraction of the selected articles were performed. A meta-analysis of the pooled data and the subgroups according to the root thirds was carried out using the RevMan software (P < .05). RESULTS: The search resulted in 2292 studies. After the duplicate studies were removed and the title and abstract were read, 20 studies were selected and 17 were considered as having a low risk of bias. The pooled meta-analysis comparing epoxy resin-based (n = 467) and paste-to-paste calcium silicate-based root canal sealers (n = 467) demonstrated higher mean push-out bond strength values (P < .001) for the epoxy resin-based root canal sealers; the heterogeneity among studies was 85% (I2). The comparisons between epoxy resin-based (n = 358) and premixed ready-to-use calcium silicate-based root canal sealers (n = 358) also demonstrated a significant difference between the sealers (P < .05), with an I2 of 95%. The subgroup analysis showed that only in the middle third, were increased bond strength values for epoxy resin-based sealer observed (P < .001), with an I2 of 94%. CONCLUSIONS: The epoxy resin-based sealer demonstratedhigher push-out bond strength than paste-to-paste calcium silicate-based root canal sealer regardless of the root third assessed. In addition, the epoxy resin-based sealer exhibited increased push-out bond strength in comparison with premixed ready-to-use calcium silicate-based root canal sealer when evaluating the middle third.

Self-adjusting file (SAF) separation in clinical use: A preliminary survey among experienced SAF users regarding prevalence and retrieval methods.

CONTEXT: The self-adjusting file (SAFs) is reported to be resistant to file separation in laboratory tests. No information is currently available regarding SAF separation during clinical use. AIM: To conduct preliminary clinical survey among experienced SAF users in order to establish the prevalence of SAF separation during clinical use and to study how were such cases treated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to experienced SAF users to make inquiries regarding incidence of SAF separation and how were such events treated. Only responses from operators who had used 50 SAFs or more were included in the present study. Fisher's exact test was used to compare file separation occurrence. RESULTS: A total of 2517 SAFs had been used by these operators, and 15 cases of file separation were reported (0.6%). Twelve of these 15 separated files could be retrieved within a few minutes using Hedström files, with no additional dentine removal required. In the three cases in which the separated files could not be retrieved, the separated file segment was successfully bypassed. CONCLUSIONS: The SAF might separate during clinical use, but the incidence of such an event was low. In most such cases, the separated file segment was easily and quickly retrieved without additional removal of dentin.