Effect of plasma treatment on root canal sealers’ adhesion to intraradicular dentin—a systematic review

Abstract

This investigation aimed to assess, through a systematic review, the effect of non-thermal plasma treatments on root canal sealers’ adhesion to dentin. This study followed the 2020 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A literature search was undertaken without limits on time or language, until May 2023, in PubMed–MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, OpenGrey, and three endodontic journals. The included studies underwent quality assessment and data extraction. Out of an initial 188 articles, 4 studies were included. Three of these studies based the adhesion ability on the push-out test in human extracted teeth, while the other used bovine dentin samples to measure the contact angle with the sealer (wettability). While there was no consensus about the effect of non-thermal plasma (NTP) on the AH Plus sealer’s adhesion to radicular dentin, NTP seemed to positively influence the adhesion ability of BioRoot RCS and Endosequence BC. The findings of the present review should be interpreted cautiously due to the scarcity of studies on the topic. The NTP parameters should be optimized to obtain a stronger evidence base in endodontics on its role as an adjuvant tool to increase sealers’ adhesion to dentin.