Kind of a long story… . Slide 1: #18 Probes to apex. Nec/chronic apical abscess draining through gingival sulcus. Just based on the lateral boneloss how many oral surgeons would take this tooth out? What a mistake and disservice. – Slide 2: immediate post-op PA. No cracks seen through the microscope. Used conservative root preps to preserve tooth structure and minimize the chance of future root fracture. – Slide 3: healed on PA and CBCT at 6 mo recall. I already confirmed the probing healed at the second visit, prior to finishing. – Slide 4: Pt returns a year later, it probes to the apex again. CBCT shows the extent of boneloss along the length of the mesial root. Narrow isolated probing. How many people take it out now? How many people kicked themselves for not taking it out before? What about those conservative root shapes minimizing the chance of root fractures? – Slide 5: But wait! The old sinus tracing trick traces to the apex of #19. #19 became necrotic and the abscess of #19 was draining through the sulcus of #18. – Slide 6: both teeth completely healed and probing on #18 returned to 2 mm. – This patient was so happy that we saved his teeth. We take the time to think these things through and make the right treatment decisions. In the wrong hands, both of these teeth could have been extracted. No person prefers that. Endodontists save teeth

November 7th, 2019 | By admin | | Comments Off on Kind of a long story… . Slide 1: #18 Probes to apex. Nec/chronic apical abscess draining through gingival sulcus. Just based on the lateral boneloss how many oral surgeons would take this tooth out? What a mistake and disservice. – Slide 2: immediate post-op PA. No cracks seen through the microscope. Used conservative root preps to preserve tooth structure and minimize the chance of future root fracture. – Slide 3: healed on PA and CBCT at 6 mo recall. I already confirmed the probing healed at the second visit, prior to finishing. – Slide 4: Pt returns a year later, it probes to the apex again. CBCT shows the extent of boneloss along the length of the mesial root. Narrow isolated probing. How many people take it out now? How many people kicked themselves for not taking it out before? What about those conservative root shapes minimizing the chance of root fractures? – Slide 5: But wait! The old sinus tracing trick traces to the apex of #19. #19 became necrotic and the abscess of #19 was draining through the sulcus of #18. – Slide 6: both teeth completely healed and probing on #18 returned to 2 mm. – This patient was so happy that we saved his teeth. We take the time to think these things through and make the right treatment decisions. In the wrong hands, both of these teeth could have been extracted. No person prefers that. Endodontists save teeth