title: Separation incidence of protaper rotary instruments: a large cohort clinical evaluation.
abstract: Separation is a potential risk when using any instrument in the root canal system. Presently, there are no large clinical studies investigating the separation incidence of the ProTaper rotary file system or the number of times a ProTaper rotary file can be safely used. The purpose of this study was to determine if the number of uses affects the separation incidence of ProTaper rotary instruments. 4652 consecutively treated root canals were performed in an endodontic group practice over a 17-month period. Both the separation incidence and the number of uses were tracked for each file. The overall rate of instrument fracture in this study was 2.4% with no significant differences over the first four uses. The results of this study indicate that ProTaper rotary files may be safely reused at least four times. The size of the rotary file, among other factors, will determine how many times a particular file should be used.
authors.affiliation: Department of Endodontics, University of Colorado School of Denistry, Denver, Colorado, USA. swolcott@endospec.com
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wolcott
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wolcott
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ishley
authors.forename: Wade
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Minnich
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Meyers
mesh_terms: D003722:Dental Alloys; D003762:Dental Instruments; D004868:Equipment Failure; D017743:Equipment Reuse; D006801:Humans; D009532:Nickel; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018915:Root Canal Preparation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014025:Titanium
chemical_list: D003722:Dental Alloys; C040654:titanium nickelide; D009532:Nickel; D014025:Titanium