Quality of molar root canal fillings performed with the lateral compaction and the single-cone technique

The aim was to compare the quality of root canal fillings performed with the single-cone and lateral compaction technique. Thirty-six canals in extracted molars were filled with ISO-standardized gutta-percha points, .02 taper, by using the lateral compaction technique; 38 were filled with one gutta-percha point, .04 taper, by using the single-cone technique. Each root canal was radiographed in the bucco-oral (BO) and the mesiodistal projection (MD). A root was sufficiently filled when three of four observers had assessed it so. There was no significant impact of the filling technique on the quality (logistic regression analysis, p > 0.4). There was a significant impact of the canal type, the mandibular distal canal having a higher chance for a sufficient root filling than the mandibular mesial canal in projection BO (p = .003), but both the mandibular distal (p = 0.001) and the maxillary palatal canals (p = 0.014) had a lower chance for a sufficient filling in projection MD.