A Comparative Study on Dentinal Tubule Penetration of Endodontic Irrigants: Confocal Laser Microscopy Insights

Aim: This In vitro study is aimed to analyse and compare the dentinal penetration depth of three endodontic irrigants using Confocal laser maicroscope.

Study Design: It is a descriptive study.

Methodology:17%EDTA, 17%REDTA and 17% Citric Acid at acidic pH (pH5.5) and distilled water as a control was taken as final root canal irrigants. 60 human permanent single rooted teeth were taken from a pool of extracted teeth, decoronated and mechanically shaped using waveone gold file system and apex was prepared by WaveOne Gold Large (size 0.45, taper 0.07) file and 5.25% sodium hypochlorite solution. The final rinsing was done with rhodamine B dye conjugated EDTA, REDTA, Citric acid and distilled water. After this, teeth were embedded in epoxy resin and sectioning was done at coronal, middle and apical third level using microtome and thin sections of approx.200μm thickness were prepared. Sections were examined under confocal laser microscope and statistical analysis was done using ANOVA and Post-Hoc Tests.

Results: Study revealed that the citric acid is the best endodontic irrigant having maximum dentinal penetration depth at all three levels.