Water uptake and solubility of Acroseal sealer in comparison with Apexit and AH Plus sealers in Hank's solution.

INTRODUCTION The function of root canal fillings is to seal the root canal system. The important physical property necessary for sealers to achieve this is low solubility. However, any therapeutic effect of calcium hydroxide-based sealers is dependent on the calcium hydroxide being in ionized form, which implies that the material must be at least partly soluble. OBJECTIVE The objective of our study was to compare weight changes of Acroseal and Apexit, conventional calcium hydroxide-based sealer and AH Plus, epoxy-amine resin sealer in Hank's solution at different exposure times. METHODS The standardized samples of each material were weighed and immersed in the Hank's solution for 1 h, 24 h, 96 h, 14 days and 28 days. After these exposure times, they were removed, dried, and weighed again. Mean weight changes were determined and the differences between sealers were-analysed statistically using a one-way ANOVA. RESULTS The highest differences in mass were observed in Apexit, 1.52%, and were significantly different from Acroseal, 0.93% (p<0.05) and AH Plus, 0.45% (p<0.05). There were no significant differences between Acroseal and AH Plus, except for 96 h period. CONCLUSION Under the conditions of our study, it may be concluded that the Acroseal sealer presented the behaviour more like epoxy-based material, AH Plus, than calcium hydroxide sealer, Apexit.