Incidence of postoperative pain after use of calcium hydroxide mixed with normal saline or 0.2% chlorhexidine digluconate as intracanal medicament in the treatment of apical periodontitis

Objective: To compare the incidence of postoperative pain after the use of calcium hydroxide powder mixed with normal saline or 0.2% chlorhexidine digluconate as intracanal medicament. Participants: Fifty-five subjects aged 17-60 years with teeth diagnosed to have apical periodontitis. Intervention: Two-visit conventional root canal treatment of seventy teeth. The teeth were divided by randomization (balloting) into two groups: control group and experimental group, each with thirty-five teeth treated with calcium hydroxide mixed with normal saline or with 0.2% chlorhexidine digluconate as intracanal medicament respectively. Incidence of postoperative pain was assessed using the universal pain assessment tool and whether or not analgesic was taken. Main outcome measured: Incidence of post-operative pain. Result: Postoperative pain occurred only at 1-day and 1-week reviews. In the control group, the overall incidence of pain was the same at both review periods (5.7%), while the experimental group showed a slight decrease in incidence between 1-day (17.2%) and 1-week (11.4%) reviews. Incidence of flare-ups was more in the experimental group (11.4%) than in the control group (5.7%). No significant statistical differences between the two groups were observed (p> 0.05). Conclusion: The incidence of postoperative pain was lower in the normal saline treatment group, but the difference was not statistically significant. (C) 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.