Apex locators put to the test
Republic of Korea: A study conducted at the School of Dentistry at Kyungpook National University in Daegu evaluated the accuracies of 7 different frequency-dependent electronic apex locators (EALs) using different irrigants in the root canal. The root canal lengths of 40 extracted human teeth embedded in an alginate were measured after canal preparation and compared with the actual canal length measurements taken before embedding the teeth in alginate.
The EALs used were Apex Finder 7005, Apit, Bingo-1020, e-Magic Finder, ProPex, Root ZX, and SmarPex. Measurements were taken with the canal dry, and saturated sequentially with 5.25% NaOCl, saline, 0.1% chlorhexidine, and 15% EDTA. According to research leader, Professor Sung Kyo Kim, chairman of the school’s department of conservative dentistry, most of EALs tested can be considered reliable in the presence of various root canal irrigants and varying sizes of the apical foramen.
“The e-Magic Finder seemed to be more accurate of all the EALs evaluated in the present study with regard to various irrigants,” says Professor Kim. The present study is unique in that it tested both newly-introduced and well-known devices in the EAL market. “This is important because new EALs need to be evaluated in their accuracies in comparison to well-known devices,” Professor Kim explained. Further investigation is needed to evaluate the performance of EALs under various clinical conditions, such as apical root resorption, blunderbuss, or blood-filled canals.
Full article
‘Accuracies of seven different apex locators under various conditions’ Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology, and Endodontology