Apical leakage of four endodontic sealers

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sealing properties of four root canal sealers. Forty-eight maxillary central incisors were instrumented with Profile rotary instruments. They were randomly divided into four groups (n = 12) and filled using lateral condensation with one of the four sealers: Sealapex, Pulp Canal Sealer, AH 26, and Ketac-Endo. The apical leakage was measured with a fluid filtration method and expressed as L s^-1 KPa^-1. The teeth filled with Sealapex displayed a higher apical leakage (8.42 ± 4.2 10^-11 L s^-1 KPa^-1) than those filled with AH 26 (2.10 ± 1.39 10^-11 L s ^-1 KPa^-1), Pulp Canal Sealer (0.17 ± 0.09 10 ^-11 L s^-1 KPa^-1) or Ketac-Endo (0.32 ± 0.24 10^-11 L s^-1 KPa^-1) (p < 0.01). No statistically significant difference was found among AH 26, Pulp Canal Sealer, and Ketac-Endo. No correlation was found between the sealing efficiency of the four sealers and their adhesive properties recorded in a previous study.