DOI: 10.36347/sjds.2023.v10i02.001

Pages: 20-28

Oval-shaped canals with their isthmuses and inter-canal communications represent a challenge for secondary endodontic treatment. Different techniques have been proposed to enhance the filling removal during retreatment procedures of oval canals filled with warm gutta-percha techniques. The aim of this review article is to systematically summarize and analyze published in vitro studies over a ten-year period of time (2012-2022), evaluating the effectiveness of retreatment of oval-shaped canals filled with warm vertical compaction technique and/or carrier-based gutta-percha. A thorough search in PubMed - MEDLINE, The Cochrane Library and Science Direct databases and manual web search was performed. After the investigations were assessed by two reviewers. A total number of eleven articles out of 145 titles covered all eligibility criteria and were selected for further synthesis. All articles investigated the effectiveness of retreatment techniques in oval-shaped root canals filled with warm vertical compaction or/and carrier-based gutta-percha. According to the present review none of the currently described retreatment techniques resulted in completely clean of remnants root canal walls. Secondary endodontic treatment is still a difficult procedure and due to the complex anatomy of oval-shaped root canals, their retreatment represents even a bigger challenge and often requires additional cleaning procedures.