Negotiability of Second Mesiobuccal Canals in Maxillary Molars Using a Reciprocating System

The aim of this prospective case series report was to assess the frequency in which the Reciproc R25 instrument (VDW, Munich, Germany) is able to scout and reach the full working length (WL) in second mesiobuccal (MB2) canals from maxillary molars. Conventional hand file negotiation was used as the reference technique for comparison. Maxillary molars (270 first molars and 71 second molars) were included in this study. After local anesthesia, the tooth was isolated with a rubber dam, and traditional straight-line access was made. After locating both first mesiobuccal and MB2 canals, patients were randomly assigned to one of the experimental groups (conventional hand filing preparation or R25 Reciproc preparation). All cases in which the hand files (G1) and R25 instrument (G2) were able to reach the fully electronically determined WL were classified as “reaching full WL” (RFWL). All cases in which the hand files (G1) and R25 instrument (G2) were unable to negotiate the full-length canal were classified as “not reaching full WL” (NRFWL). The number of root canals classified as RFWL and NRFWL from both groups were recorded and tabulated on an Excel data sheet (Microsoft, Redmond, WA). The frequency distributions (%) of root canals classified as RFWL and NRFWL were compared with overall-treated canals and for each treatment approach (hand file and R25 instrument) using a Pearson chi-square test. In group 1, the hand file approach reached the full WL in 57.48% of cases, whereas in group 2 the R25 instrument reached the full WL in 85.63% of cases. Three file separations occurred in each group while negotiating the MB2 canal. According to this study, the R25 instrument was 32% more effective when compared with hand files in scouting and negotiating MB2 canals in maxillary first and second molars. There was no difference with regard to file separation when comparing both preparation techniques.