Mutagenicities of two Endodontic Sealers, Endomethasone and AH Plus

Endodontic sealers are commonly used in conjunction with obturation core material or as single filler for obturating root canal(s) following a root canal treatment. This material will remain in the tooth environment as long as the tooth is intact. Therefore, its properties have to be biocompatible toward the tissues surround. Biocompatibility includes toxicity, mutagenicity, and genotoxicity. Most of endodontic sealers are toxic to the tissues. Meanwhile, information due to mutagenicities of the sealers were vary, and somehow conflicting. Endomethasone and AH Plus are currently used as the sealers of choice at the Conservative Dentistry Clinic, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Indonesia. Objective: this study was done to screen mutagenic activities of two endodontic sealers Endomethasone and AH Plus. Method: mutagenicity test using Ames Test. Salmonella typhimurium strain TA 1535 and TA 1537 were chosen as test vehicles without the use of S-9 homogenate. The sealers were tested 24 hours after they had been mixed. For each of the sealer tested, doses of 50,100,250,500,750,1000,2500,5000,and 10000µg were prepared in DMSO solution. Mixtures of tested solutions were mixed with each of Salmonella strains and were incubated for 36 hours. Results: number of revert colonies counted for every sealer tested were low compare to the number of revert colonies of the positive control and found close to the number of revert colonies of the negative control or even lower. Conclusion: neither Endomethasone nor AH Plus showed any mutagenic activies toward S.typhimurium TA 1535 and TA 1537.

Keywords: endodontic sealers, Endomethasone, AH Plus, biocompatibility, mutagenicity, Ames Test