Comparing The Effectiveness Of Various Irrigant Activation Techniques With Conventional Needle Irrigation - A Systematic Review

Chemo-mechanical preparation plays a vital role in achieving clinical success in endodontic treatment. Due to varied root morphology, cleaning and shaping cannot be attained by mechanical debridement alone. In vitro studies have confirmed that the irrigant does not penetrate more than 1-2mm beyond the needle orifice. Hence activation of irrigant through various irrigant activation techniques have been tried to improve the efficacy of irrigant penetration into the root canal system. The aim of this study was to comparatively evaluate the microbial reduction in the root canal after Ultrasonic irrigation, Sonic irrigation and Conventional needle irrigation. A search was performed in electronic databases such as PubMed central, Google database and hand search using specific search terms. Only clinical trials were included and the reduction in microbial count were evaluated after ultrasonic and sonic irrigant activation techniques. Five studies fulfilled the study criteria, out of which three studies had high risk of bias and two studies had low risk of bias. To conclude, most of the studies lacked common methodology and more ardent clinical trials are necessary to determine the effectiveness of ultrasonic and sonic irrigation techniques in the microbial reduction of the root canal system