Background: The dentinal debris produced during root canal preparation can be extruded through the apical foramen, which may cause undesired consequences, such as the postoperative inflammation of periapical tissues.
Objectives: The aim of the present in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of glide path preparation on apical debris extrusion for the Reciproc®, WaveOne Gold® and One Curve file systems.
Material and methods: A total of 72 mandibular incisors were divided into 6 groups according to the nickel-titanium (NiTi) system used and glide path preparation: group Rp - Reciproc; group Rp-O - Reciproc after glide path preparation; group WG - WaveOne Gold; group WG-O - WaveOne Gold after glide path preparation; group OC - One Curve; and group OC-O - One Curve after glide path preparation. The preand post-instrumentation weight of Eppendorf tubes was measured. The pre-weight was subtracted from the post-weight to calculate the amount of apically extruded debris. The data was analyzed using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the statistical program PASW Statistics for Windows, v.18.0.
Results: No statistically significant differences were found between the single-NiTi file systems with different kinematics in terms of apical debris extrusion, with or without glide path preparation (p > 0.05).
Conclusions: The amount of apically extruded debris was not affected by the kinematics of different single-NiTi file systems. Moreover, creating a glide path had no effect on the apically extruded debris in straight root canals.
Keywords: dental instruments; endodontics; root canal preparation; root canal therapy.