Abstract
Aims: The current study aims at comparing the accuracy of root canal lengths in primary teeth determined by tactile sense, conventional radiography and electronic apex locator(EAL) Materials and Methods: The study consisted of 30 extracted, single-rooted primary teeth . A comparison was conducted between the root canal length measurements obtained by tactile sensation ,conventional radiography and electronic apex locator (EAL), using the actual root canal length as a standardization to compare the above methods. Root canal length measurements were completed with size15-K file in actual-standard and measuring methods. The accuracy of the three systems to determine the root-canal length were evaluated by measuring the distance from the tip of the file to the apex. Results: Statistical results revealed that the EAL was the most accurate method of measurement with the lowest value of standard deviation (0.88±1.41) when compared with the remaining two methods, followed by the conventional radiography while the tactile sense method can be considered the least accurate one since, a significant difference at p that the sole use of tactile method is generally depreciated because of it's non reliability. An electronic apex locator method have been proved to be the technique of choice in determining the root canal length in primary teeth.
