Evaluation of Sealing Ability and Setting Characteristics of Roekoseal Automix®

Abstract

Root canal filling is important to seal off the root-canal system completely to prevent bacterial ingress and activity. In this study, the sealing ability of RoekoSeal Automix® was evaluated by the dye penetration test. The setting time, solubility and disintegration, film thickness and flow were also investigated as sealing characteristics. The significance of RoekoSeal Automix® in root filling was examined in comparison with non-eugenol root-canal sealer (Canals®-N.) In the dye penetration test, 42 human single-rooted teeth were used. After preparation of root canals with a K-file to size (#70). 15 teeth were obturated by the lateral condensation technique using RoekoSeal Automix® and gutta-percha points, and were divided into three groups of five teeth. Each group was placed in indian ink at 37℃for 1, 2 and 4 weeks, respectively. A transparent specimen was made from each tooth and the length of dye penetration from the root apex was measured. The same procedure was done for Canals®-N using 15 teeth and another 12 teeth were used as positive and negative controls. The setting time, solubility and disintegration, film thickness and flow were also measured referring to ISO 1566 and 6876. With RoekoSeal Automix®, the lengths of dye penetration for 1, 2 and 4 weeks were 1.62 mm, 1.42 mm and 1.43 mm, respectively, while those of Canals®-N were 2.19 mm, 2.79 mm and 3.11 mm, respectively. A significant difference was found between RoekoSeal Automix® and Canals®-N by 2way ANOVA (p<0.01). The setting time of RoekoSeal Automix® was 85.33 minutes; it was much shorter than Canals®-N of 7 days. The solubility and disintegration, film thickness and flow of RoekoSeal Automix® also showed favorable characteristics for the root canal sealing and the differences between those of RoekoSeal Automix® and Canals®-N were significant by l-way ANOVA (p<0.01). These findings suggested that RoekoSeal Automix® possesses good features in the setting time, solubility and disintegration, film thickness and flow, which would contribute to the root-canal sealing ability of RoekoSeal Automix®