Prevalence of post-treatment pain after cleaning and shaping of the root canal system using manual step-back versus rotary nickel titanium.

To evaluate the effect of ProTaper rotary NiTi instrumentation technique on post-treatment pain at different time periods when compared with step-back technique, one hundred forty-six patients with 160 teeth participated in this study. All treated teeth (160) are having vital pulps and divided into two groups according to the canal instrumentation technique. Group (1) consisted of 80 teeth, cleaned and shaped with manual step-back technique using K-Flexo hand files. Group (2) was 80 teeth cleaned and shaped using ProTaper (NiTi) rotary files. Patients assessed post-treatment pain at 8 h, 24 h, and 48 h as none, mild, moderate, or severe. Evaluation of the two groups, according to the three post-treatment time period, was tabled as to the number of responses at each pain level at each interval. Comparisons were made by subjecting the collected data to a multiple- regression test. The results demonstrated that there were no statistically significant difference in post-treatment pain between the two groups at any time period P > 0.05.