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.