Do You Fully Know & Understand Endo Instruments, so, You can Make Your Endo Treatment Efficient?
Over the years, the field of Endodontics has witness many changes in terms of its technique, and, its development continues to happen to make our Endodontic treatment efficient. These developments made our practice now in Endodontics a lot easier, faster and most important safer.
For the longest time performing Endodontic procedure is considered as not an easy feat. As such, many manufacturers tried to produce instruments and tools for Endodontics with a variety of designs of files and broaches to properly clean, shape, enlarge and taper the canals successfully. Even the materials used by manufacturers to create them are vast such as carbon steel, stainless steel or nickel-titanium. Moreover, there are also choices now on how we can use them whether hand-driven or machine-driven. And, for machine-driven, there's also additional choice on its movements whether rotary or reciprocating.
Thus, with the various ways on how we can do our RCT treatments to make it easier for us and be more effective, it is necessary now that we do know and fully understand the manner of use and indications of these instruments and tools. Why? So, we can maximize its features and benefits to our advantage. Their advantages will be rendered useless unless we do take time to educate and familiarize ourselves to all of them, so, we can choose what's best to use according to our specific case. Let's delve into it now through this post. For the Part 1, we will discuss materials, its standardization, its advantages and disadvantages.
CLASSIFICATIONS OF ENDODONTIC INSTRUMENTS
I. EXPLORING INSTRUMENTS - are instruments used to locate the canal orifice and determine patency of the root canal.
e.g. endodontic explorer, smooth broaches (path finder)
II. DEBRIDING INSTRUMENTS - are instruments used to extirpate the pulp and remove any foreign debris.
e.g. barbed broach
III. OBTURATING INSTRUMENTS - are instruments used to cement and pack gutta-percha into the root.
e.g. spreaders, pluggers and lentulospirals
TYPES OF METAL USED IN ENDODONTIC INSTRUMENTS
I. CARBON STEEL - these alloys contains less than 2.1% of carbon
Advantages:
- - Higher hardness than stainless steel.
Disadvantages:
- - Prone to corrosion, so, it cannot be re-sterilized
- - Prone to rust.
Example: Barbed Broach.
II. STAINLESS STEEL INSTRUMENTS - They contain 18 chromium, 8-10% nickel and 0.12% carbon.
Advantages:
- Corrosion Resistant
Disadvantages:
- Stiff in nature
- Prone to fracture
- Prone to distortion
Example: K-File, H-File, Reamer
III. NICKEL TITANIUM INSTRUMENTS - These instruments contain 55% nickel and 45% titanium.
Advantages:
- - Shape Memory
- - Super Elasticity
- - Low Modulus of Elasticity
- - Corrosion Resistant
- - Softer
- - Good Resiliency
- - Biocompatibility
Disadvantages:
- - Poor Cutting Efficiency
- - NiTi Files Do Not Show Signs of Fatigue Before they Fracture.
- - Poor Resistance to Fracture as Compared to Stainless Steel.
Example: K-File, H-File, Reamer
Geometric Codings in Endodontic Instruments
ISO-Color Coding
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, no dental instruments or tools can be used for all of our dental cases and doing our Endodontic treatments is not an exception to that rule. We sometimes have this erroneous assumption that using one specific system can be used for all of our RCT cases, however, realistically speaking, this is not really true especially in Endodontic cases. Thus, majority of the time, we may end up using a mixed of materials of Endodontic tools to actually achieve success in our RCT treatment. It is, then, advantageous for us to really familiarized ourselves with these materials, so, we can properly choose the best tool to be used for the specific situation of the root canal we are treating and achieve predictable success.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Dr. Bryan Anduiza - Writer
Dr. Jean Villanueva - Editor | Writer
