Introduction: The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of chitosan (CS)-derivative and its binding to citric-acid with chelators traditionally used in clinical practice.
Materials and Methods: 50 lower pre-molars were decoronated, standardizing a length of 15 mm, subsequently were instrumented with telescopic technique up to diameter 40.02, irrigated with 5% sodium hypochlorite. The samples were divided according to the treatment of smear layer (SL) (n = 10). Group I: 5% CS-oligosaccharide, Group II: 5% CS-oligosaccharide citrate, Group III: 10% citric acid, Group IV: 17% ethylenediaminetetraacetic-acid (EDTA), and Group V: distilled water. The samples were sectioned longitudinally, sputtered with gold, and observed with scanning electron microscope (SEM) under ×2000 and ×5000 magnifications (FIB-SEM Scios 2 LoVac, Thermo scientific, USA).
Results: The comparison between groups was made with Kruskal–Wallis test (p < 0.05). Intra-group comparison was made with Mann–Whitney U-test, and significant differences were found between the experimental groups with the negative control group (p < 0.05). In the apical third, CS-oligosaccharide citrate demonstrated better SL removal compared to the other groups (p < 0.05) but not with EDTA (p > 0.05). In the cervical and middle thirds, no differences were found (p > 0.05).
Conclusion: CS-oligosaccharide and CS-oligosaccharide citrate demonstrated similar chelating effect to citric acid and EDTA but were not superior.