Comparison Of Quality Of Obturation Using Radiographs - A Retrospective Study

Root canal obturation fills up the potential space that can be recolonized by microorganism in future. It provides a complete filling of the canal in all dimensions to prevent ingress of bacteria and their toxins and their flow into the periapical tissues. So, the aim of this study was to compare the technical quality of three different obturation techniques using radiograph. Data was retrospectively retrieved from periapical radiographs of 57 root canal treated posterior teeth for the assessment of obturation quality. Data was divided into three groups. Group I- Lateral condensation technique, Group II-Single cone matched taper technique, Group III- Continuous wave compaction. Mann Whitney U and Chisquare test was applied to compare the difference in technical quality of obturation between three techniques. The assessment of the overall scores for the obturation quality between three techniques showed that Group II- Single cone matched taper technique had highest scores followed by continuous wave compaction and lateral condensation technique. Within the limitations of the present study, it can be concluded that Single cone obturation technique resulted in overall good obturation when compared to Lateral condensation and Continuous wave compaction techniques