The quality of apical canal preparation using hand and rotary instruments with specific criteria for enlargement based on initial apical file size

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the quality of apical enlargement of mesiobuccal canals of mandibular molars using conventional stainless steel hand files (K files) and nickel-titanium (Ni-Ti) rotary instruments (LightSpeed). Thirty freshly extracted mandibular molars were randomly assigned to three equal groups (n = 10 each group). The mesiobuccal canals were instrumented with K file using step-back technique without coronal flaring (control; group 1), K file using step-back technique after coronal flaring (group 2), and LightSpeed instrumentation (group 3). Specific criteria for apical enlargement based on initial apical size were used. For step-back techniques, the master apical file..