Survival of Endodontically Treated Cracked Posterior Permanent Teeth
In endodontic practice, dealing with cracked teeth is a weekly occurrence. But just because a crack appears on the outside of a tooth, does it mean the tooth is condemned? Dr. Mary Dabuleanu, Endodontist from Toronto, believes this is not necessarily the case - and she has the evidence to back it up.
“When a cracked tooth does not have symptoms of irreversible pulpitis, the preference is to keep the tooth alive for as long as possible”, says Dr. Dabuleanu. “A cracked tooth without a root canal will stay in a patient’s mouth longer than a tooth with a root canal and a full coverage restoration”.
In conversation with Dr. John O’Keefe, Director of Knowledge Networks CDA, Dr. Dabuleanu presents a recent systematic review published in the Journal of Endodontics that confirms the survival and success rates in cracked teeth destined for root canal treatment to be comparable with those of regular teeth.
In this short and to-the-point video, Dr. Dabuleanu walks through the key findings of the study and shares her best practice for diagnosing and managing patients with cracked teeth.
We hope you find the conversation useful. We welcome your thoughts, questions and/or suggestions about this post and other topics. Leave a comment in the box below or send us your feedback by email.
Until next time!
CDA Oasis Team
Resource
Could I please get clarification? The speaker says she has cracked teeth in her own mouth and prefers keeping the teeth vital whenever possible…does she believe such teeth should always get full coverage? And if so, how to deal with the cracked tooth that soon after getting full coverage does in fact develop irreversible pulpitis or necrosis, and now you have to do endo thru a new crown…awkward situation with some patients. Thank you