4. Discussion
It is a universally accepted view that formation of a three-dimensional apical seal is an essential part of successful endodontic treatment. In light of this endodontic goal, the purpose of the present study was to perform a comparative apical seal analysis between contemporary and conventional sealers on the basis of three different obturation techniques. Interestingly, all three endodontic sealers produced their most effective apical seal with different obturation techniques. Furthermore, we found that the apical seal has a significant association with the endodontic sealer employed, but non-significant association with the obturation technique used.Over 80% of microleakage studies have opted for dye penetration as the assessment method of choice [In the present study, amongst the sealer groups tested, Sealapex demonstrated the lowest apical microleakage followed by Endosequence; highest values were observed for Endoseal. The better sealing ability of Sealapex can be credited to the materials’ property of volumetric expansion. On the contrary, it is argued in the literature that, since Sealapex undergoes volumetric expansion via water absorption to attain an initial acceptable seal, this paradoxically causes the material to become soluble, thus deteriorating its apical seal over time [In the current study, amongst the calcium silicate sealers tested, Endosequence produced better results than Endoseal. Similar outcomes were reported by Ballullaya et al.; they performed stereomicroscopic analysis of six sealers and reported better sealing ability of Endosequence and Sealapex in comparison to MTA Plus [In our study, all three Endoseal technique groups yielded statistically significant differences (A pattern of observations similar to those of the current study has been seen in previous research, where MTA-based sealers have shown higher microleakage values than those of conventional materials after 7 days [The present study also aimed to evaluate the effect of three different obturation techniques on the apical sealing ability of conventional and contemporary sealers. The results showed insignificant differences between the three obturation methods (In sum, this is the first study that compares the apical sealing ability of contemporary calcium silicate sealers with a conventional calcium hydroxide sealer on the basis of three different obturation techniques. There were a few limitations to the study: for example, non-invasive assessment methods such as micro CT could not be employed due to lack of availability and limited budget; the effect of canal curvature was not assessed; and small subgroup sample sizes were used. These areas should be improved in future research.