Endodontic Instrument’s Single use Policy. A Literature Review

Abstract

Over the last quarter of the century, the place of the stainless steel endodontic instruments was taken slowly and surely by nickel–titanium files, becoming a “must have” instrument “for root canal treatments, even if steel instruments are still being used, mainly at the inception of the root canal treatment. Dentists increasingly use Nickel-Titanium (Ni-Ti) files for their properties that overlap those of stainless steel instruments in cleaning and giving a proper shape to the canal and the filling subsequently. It is well known the fragility and the rigidity of the steel instruments compared with the Ni-Ti ones. These new instruments also increased the speed of the treatment. In the opinion of the majority of the dentists root canal preparation represents a very important and challenging treatment being in close relationship with the following maneuvers like irrigation and filling [1,2]. The primary reason for instrumentation in case of root canals is that the bulk material contained within it needs to be removed [2] that can be ether pulp tissue, infected root dentine or necrotic debris. Hulsmann considers that these two processes, mechanical instrumentation and chemical treatment, cannot be separated and must go hand in hand, referred to as chemo-mechanical treatment [3,4]. Therefore, root canal instruments are indispensable in root canal therapy, even today in the age of implants, stem cells, biologic 3D printers and lasers. Being so useful, reliable, resistant and ultimately, not cheap, the initially single-use instruments got to be reused by a vast number of practitioners because the legislation wide world is not prohibiting it nor imposing the single-use, with very few exceptions.