Evaluation of Radio-opacity, Setting Time and Cytotoxicity of Different Root Canal Sealers

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate radio-opacity, setting time and cytotoxicity of commercially available root canal sealers (Tech Biosealer Endo and MTA-Fillapex)and Flavonoid-based experimental sealer. The radiopacity of each material was determined using an aluminium step-wedge and densitometer, while Initial and final setting time was evaluated using Gilmore needle system. Cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTT assay to check the human fibroblasts cells viability at 24 and 72 hours periods. Mixed ANOVA and Univirate ANOVA were used to assess effect of time and sealer over cytotoxicity, and setting time. A one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to comparison between sealers regarding radiopacity followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test. The significance level was set at P ≤ 0.05. Tech Biosealer Endo showed mean radio-opacity value comparable to MTA-Fillapex, while Flavonoid-based experimental sealer has mean radio-opacity value significantly lower than other tested sealers (p<.05). Flavonoid-based experimental sealer has shown significantly longest mean initial and final setting times followed by MTA-Fillapex and Tech Biosealer Endo (p<.05). Finally, for all observation periods, the significantly highest cytotoxicity was exhibited by MTA-Fillapex (p<.05). The present study concluded that, both Tech Biosealer Endo and MTA-Fillapex sealers have physical properties(radio-opacity, setting time) in agreement with ISO and ANSI/ADA specification , while Flavonoid-based experimental sealer and Tech Biosealer Endo were still superior to MTA-Fillapex regarding cytotoxicity.