Reciproc vs. hand instrumentation in dental practice: a study in routine care

Background. Little is known about the clinical impact of new root canal preparation systems in general dental practice under routine care conditions. Therefore, we compared hand instrumentation (H) with Reciproc (R) (VDW, Munich, Germany) preparation. The outcomes were endodontic related pain and oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL), evaluation of the procedures by the patients and the strain felt by the dentists during root canal therapy. Methods. Six dentists participated in the trial as practitioner–investigators. In the first phase of the trial they prepared root canals with H and in the second phase with R. The patients documented their pain felt with a visual analogue scale (VAS 100) and OHRQoL with the German short version of the oral health impact profile (OHIP-G-14) before treatment and before the completion of therapy and answered questions about how they experienced the treatment. The dentists documented their physical strain during treatment. Results. A total of 137 patients were included in the evaluation. 66 patients were treated with H, 71 with R. Pain reduction was 32.6 (SD 32.9) VAS (H) vs. 29.4 (SD 26.9) VAS (R) (p = 0.550), and the improvement of the OHIP-14 score was 5.5 (SD 9.2) (H) vs. 6.7 (SD 7.4) (R) (p = 0.383). There were no statistical differences in both groups. Significantly fewer patients felt stressed by the duration of treatment with R as with H (p = 0.018). Significantly more dentists reported that their general physical strain and the strain on their fingers were less severe with R than with H (p = 0.013 and p < 0.001). Discussion. H as well as R effectively reduced endodontic related pain and OHRQoL without statistical differences. R has advantages in terms of how patients experience the treatment and regarding the physical strain felt by the dentists.