Perforation repair comparing two types of mineral trioxide aggregate

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of two types of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) to seal furcal perforations in extracted human molars using an anaerobic bacterial leakage model. Forty, human, maxillary and mandibular molars were randomly divided into two experimental groups of 18, with two teeth used as positive controls and two teeth without perforations used as negative controls. Experimental group 1 was repaired with gray-colored MTA and group 2 with off-white-colored MTA. A dual-chamber, anaerobic, bacterial-leakage model was assembled. Brain-heart infusion broth with yeast extract, hemin, and menadione was used as the culture broth for Fusobacterium nucleatum. Two of 18 gray-colored MTA samples leaked and three off-white-colored MTA samples leaked. There was no significant difference between the two types of MTA in preventing leakage of F. nucleatum past furcal perforation repairs.