Abstract

Objective:
To evaluate effect of activated charcoal and activated charcoal calcium hydroxide combination mixed with distilled water on dentin microhardness.
Materials and methods
48 extracted human maxillary incisor teeth were decoronated at the cementoenamel junction and prepared using Protaper next up to X 4. Then they were randomly allocated to three treatment groups and one control group (12 samples for each group) according to applied medicament as follows: The control group (no medication was applied), Group I: Ca(OH)2 ( Cerkamed, Poland) mixed with distilled water, Group II: Activated charcoal (Eucarbon Sedico, Cairo, Egypt) / Ca(OH)2 combination mixed with distilled water, Group III: Activated charcoal mixed with distilled water. After medicament application, specimens were incubated at 37 °C for 24 h, 3 and 7 days. After each storage period, 4 randomly selected specimens were taken from each group and a middle 2-mm root cylinder was horizontally sectioned from each root for microhardness evaluation using the Vickers microhardness tester. Data were analyzed using Two-way ANOVA test to study the effect of intracanal medication, time, and their interactions on mean micro-hardness values.
Results:
There was no statistically significant difference between microhardness values of specimens treated with different intracanal medications and control group at different time periods.