Novel Bioceramic Root Repair Materials: Review of the Literature

Bioceramics are specially designed ceramic materials, which, due to their properties such as biocompatibility, bioactivity and a range of physical features, are applied in a variety of medical and dental procedures. The first bioceramic used with success in dentistry was Mineral Trioxide Aggregate, which then became the golden standard in endodontics. MTA, however, despite its wide acknowledgement, has several inconvenient clinical drawbacks. To overcome those obstacles the novel bioceramic materials like Biodentine (R), BioAggregate (R), Calcium Enriched Mixture and EndoSequence (R) were introduced to the market. In this paper the characteristics of those materials were described in regards to their impact on composition and its influence on the materials' features, physical properties such as setting time, radiopacity, compressive and push-out bond strength, sealing ability and biological attributes such as bioactivity and biocompatibility. Based on the available publications those materials have a broad range of possible clinical applications which cover root repair procedures such as root-end filing, open apex management or perforation repair, vital pulp therapy as well as regenerative endodontics. Some of them may also be used as canal sealers. Nonetheless, there is still need for further research to confirm the long-term performance of those novel materials