Postoperative Pain Intensity after Single- versus Two-visit Nonsurgical Endodontic Retreatment: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to evaluate postoperative pain after single-visit and 2-visit non-surgical endodontic retreatments with 2 different intracanal medicaments.

METHODS: A total of 150 patients with asymptomatic root canal-treated teeth in need of nonsurgical endodontic retreatment were randomly divided into 3 groups (n = 50). Patients were selected randomly from among those without preoperative pain. Patients in group 1 (single visit) were treated in a single visit. Patients in group 2 and group 3 were treated in different visits with calcium hydroxide and chlorhexidine (CHX) as intracanal medicaments. The presence of postoperative pain was assessed 1, 2, 3, and 7 days and 1 month after treatment. All 2-visit treatments were completed 1 week after the initial visit. Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and Pearson chi-square tests (α = 0.01, 0.05).

RESULTS: Postoperative pain was significantly higher in the CHX group in comparison with the single-visit group (P ≤ .05) on the first day of assessment. On the second day, postoperative pain was significantly less in the single-visit group (P < .05) than in the other 2 groups. There were no significant differences among the groups on the third and seventh days of assessment. At the 1-month assessment, postoperative pain was significantly higher in both the calcium hydroxide group (P < .05) and the CHX group (P < .05) in comparison with the single-visit group.

CONCLUSIONS: Single-visit nonsurgical endodontic retreatment presented fewer incidences of postoperative pain in comparison with 2-visit nonsurgical endodontic retreatment based on assessments ranging from 1 day to 1 month.