A COMPARISON OF CANAL PREPARATION WITH NICKEL-TITANIUM AND STAINLESS-STEEL INSTRUMENTS

Maintaining the original canal path during instrumentation is a challe nge in narrow curved canals. This study compared the maintenance of th e original canal path of curved root canals during instrumentation wit h nickel-titanium (Mac) hand files, nickel-titanium engine-driven file s, and stainless steel (K-Flex) files. Canal path maintenance was dete rmined by superimposing instrumentation radiographs over an initial fi le radiograph and examining for discrepancies, Nickel-titanium hand an d engine-driven instruments maintained the original canal path in all cases. The incidence of deviation from the original canal path during instrumentation with stainless steel files increased with file size. T he difference between nickel-titanium groups and stainless steel becam e statistically significant with instruments larger than size 30. In t his study, nickel-titanium files were more effective in maintaining th e original canal path of curved root canals when the apical preparatio n was enlarged beyond size 30.