Comparative evaluation of machine assisted irrigation activation technique and conventional syringe irrigation on postoperative pain in patients undergoing endodontic treatment: A Systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess whether machine- assisted agitation resulted in less postoperative pain (PP) compared with syringe irrigation with needle alone in adult patients undergoing root canal treatment. Methodology: PICO strategy was used to electronically search key terms in the PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar and Wiley Online databases up to 2021 for randomized control trials (RCTs) with an observation period of at least 6 hours. The bias risk for RCTs was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.4 (RevMan 5.4, The Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen). Results: A total of 9 studies (for systematic review) including 1075 patients with a 565/530 male to female ratio and a mean age of 40.5 years met the inclusion criteria. Out of 9, 6 studies were selected for the meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of the 6 studies indicated that overall, the use of machine-assisted irrigation technique showed better postoperative pain reduction than conventional syringe irrigation. Conclusion: Overall, machine-assisted irrigation causes reduction in postoperative pain compared to conventional syringe irrigation.