Journal of Dental Medicine

One of the major factors in a successful root canal therapy is the determination of root length before canal preparation. Radiography has been proved to be useful in this case, but nowadays for reducing radiation, radiovisiography has been recommended. The aim of this study was comparing conventional radiography (CR) with radiovisiography (RVG) in determination of canal length. 101 anterior and posterior extracted human teeth were selected. After mounting in unolit block, K- file (Num. 15) was placed in canal with tactile sense. Working length was measured by C.R and RVG. The results were analyzed by complete, randomized block design. RVG and CR showed shorter length than actual length. But, the measured lengths did not show significant statistical differences. As a result, considering the advantages of RVG, it is recommended in determining canal length.

Background and Aim: Proper shaping and cleaning of the root canal system is one of the most important aspects of endodontic treatment. To estimate the canal length before instrumentation in endodontic treatment, traditionally, conventional radiographic techniques and recently Direct Digital Radiography (DDR) are applied. The application of computer technology to radiography has allowed less exposure time, image acquisition, manipulation, storage, retrieval, and transmission to remote sites in a digital format, elimination of wet processing and considerable reduction in the time lapse between image acquisition and display. The purpose of this study was to compare the accuracy of DDR versus conventional radiography in estimating endodontic file lengths of curved canals in first mandibular molars.

Materials and Methods: In this test evaluation study, fourty extracted human first mandibular molars with root curvature were selected.Samples were divided into two groups: With root curvature less than 25 and more than 25. Samples were mounted in plaster blocks and canal lengths were estimated by using DDR and conventional radiographs. Regression analysis and correlation coefficient were used to calculate statistical differences between the groups with P<0.05 as the limit of significance.

Results: Conventional radiography was more precise in canals with less than 25 degrees curvature (P=0.160). While, DDR was more precise for canals with curvature more than 25 degrees (P=0.605). However, these differences were not statistically significant.

Conclusion: The image quality of DDR system has improved to the point that it can now be used for estimating canal lengths, even for curved canals, with accuracy comparable to that of conventional radiography.