Sealing ability of three commercial resin-based endodontic sealers

This study sought to compare the leakage of micro-organisms through root canals that had been obturated using one of three commercial endodontic sealers. Forty maxillary anterior human teeth were randomly assigned to one of three groups, depending on the sealer used. This study utilized an in vitro microbial leakage test with a split chamber design. A mixture of bacterial markers was placed in the upper chamber and could reach the lower chamber (which contained brain heart infusion broth) only by leaking through the root canal filling. Microbial leakage was checked daily for 60 days and data were analyzed statistically by Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. The materials were further evaluated for antimicrobial effect by an agar diffusion test. The results of the leakage test showed no statistically significant difference between Sealer 26 and AH Plus, although both materials differed significantly from Resilon/Epiphany, which took less time to display microbial leakage. All three sealers demonstrated microbial leakage in less than 60 days; however, the agar diffusion test showed that AH Plus and Resilon/Epiphany induced significantly larger microbial inhibition zones than those induced by Sealer 26.