Survey of Endodontic Post Systems Used by Practicing Dentists

Objectives: Post and core restorations enable stress distribution and replacement of missing tooth structure in endodontically treated teeth. Guidelines exist in dental literature to help with selection of post systems. With the advent of new materials, prefabricated posts have gained popularity among dentists. However, cast-metal post-and-core systems are still considered gold standard. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the different endodontic post systems currently used by dental practioners.
Methods: As part of continuing education courses, surveys were handed out to dentists attending CE meetings in 10 locations in both the United States and Europe. The questions included: years of practice, specialty training if applicable, brand, type, shape and material of endodontic post systems used. Other information was also documented, such as dentists' knowledge about the roles of endodontic posts and cement types.
Results: Descriptive statistical analysis was used to assess the percentage of respondents. 92% of the participants were general practitioners with 29(±10) years of experience. The majority agreed upon using endodontic posts when there is insufficient remaining coronal tooth structure and for stress distribution. Passive, parallel posts were the most commonly reported type and shape. As for material, fiber posts were the most frequently used (72%), followed by prefabricated alloys (39%), cast-metal posts (34%), prefabricated titanium posts (30%) and stainless-steel posts (22%). For cementation, resin modified glass ionomer cement was the most frequently used (40%) followed by self-adhesive (30%), resin cement (17%) and zinc phosphate (6%).
Conclusions: This study confirms that knowledge of participants regarding the role of endodontic posts corresponds to dental literature. Noteworthy is an increase in the use of fiber posts which may be attributed to the assumption that fiber posts cause favorable fractures as compared to cast metal posts and cores, although there has been little evidence in dental literature to validate this claim.