Archives

Introduction: Sterilization primarily relates to processing reusable instruments to prevent cross infection. Various methods are used to sterilize these instruments. Pre cleaning and sterilization of some instruments are difficult due to the complex architecture and small size endodontic files used for cleaning shaping of root canal systems.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy on 4 modes of sterilizing endodontic files in dental practice and to recommend the effective methods from among these.

Materials and Method: Study was performed using Enterococcus faecalis as test microorganisms, on 125 K-file of 25 size with 21mm length. 25 k-files was taken as control group and remaining 100 k-files was divided into 4 groups of 25 k-files each in 4 different modes of sterilization: B-class Autoclave, N-class Autoclave, Glutaraldehyde and Glass-bead sterilizer. Pre and post sterilization colony count was done.

Result: Study showed group A and group B both had complete sterilization followed by Group C and D for Enterococcus faecalis. Out of four sterilization techniques followed in this study, 100 % results were noticed in Group A. while group C, group D had 99.97% and 99.58% efficiency respectively as per our result. These techniques were also effective as they showed statistically significant difference between pre‑ and post‑sterilization values (P <0.01).

Conclusion: Hence, both B-class and N-class Autoclave are most effective for sterilization and mandatory to be considered as gold standard method to prevent cross infection and reinfection and for faster and alternative sterilization, other methods could be used but with less effectiveness.

Autoclave; enterococcus faecalis; glass-bead sterilizer; glutaraldehyde; sterilization.