Endodontology
The expression endodontology describes an area of dentistry that deals with issues of the inner parts of teeth: the dental pulp, the dentin and surrounding tissue.
Once caries has advanced into the dental pulp or a chronic infection suddenly becomes active the patient suffers from strong pain.
Depending on the extent of destruction, root canal treatment
may be necessary.
It is difficult to make a reliable prognosis because success depends on many factors:
- The more complex the system of roots of a particular tooth, the more difficult the treatment becomes and the greater the risk that an infection can’t be stopped completely.
- Every root canal has several horizontal branches. The complexity of this system of canals determines the chance of success. More branches make it more difficult to remove the entire infection.
- In some cases the resection of the root tip is an alternative to consider. In this treatment the last 3 millimeters of the tip are entirely removed, taking the branches and remaining bacteria with them.
- Some teeth have extremely thin and tender roots so that the opening and cleaning of the root canal would carry the risk of losing the entire tooth’s stability. That can cause the tooth to break along its axis. This threat is even greater in teeth that are used as support pillars for bridges.
If that happens, the tooth is lost and must be removed.
- Depending on the amount of teeth already lost, it is possible that the quite high costs of this therapy aren’t covered by health insurance.
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