Root canal treatment or endodontic therapy is the treatment of diseases of the tissue inside the root canals up to the tissue around the root tip. Since nerves and blood vessels run in the root canals, the diseased pulp (dental pulp) can usually be very painful on the one hand, and on the other hand pathogens and metabolic toxins can not only get into the jawbone from here, but through the bloodstream into the whole body.

 

The aim of the treatment is to remove the irreversibly (irreversibly) diseased pulp and to seal the resulting cavity after disinfecting measures with a bacteria-proof root filling.

Painful pulpits (irreversible inflammation of the pulp), pulp necrosis (dead tooth pulp), purulent pulpitis (purulent inflammation of the pulp / gangrene), apical periodontitis (inflammation affecting the root tip region) and apical cyst formation lead to endodontic treatment.

Symptomatology:

• Pain to cold and / or heat

• Tooth feels elongated

• Pain by biting

• Feeling of pressure in the apex region (root tip region)

 

Root canal treatment represents an attempt to preserve the tooth, which can become a major challenge due to a complex anatomical constellation, e.g., due to their very small dimensions, side-canals of the root canal that cannot be treated and in which non-vital residual tissue of the pulp persist.

 

However, the tooth will be more fragile after a root canal treatment than it was before. A tooth without a pulp does not receive nutrients from the blood vessels and the tooth becomes more brittle, so a dental crown offers protection.

 

LASER in Endodontics

In my Zahnarztpraxis Uetikon am See, LASER is also used in root canal treatments; after the computer-controlled determination of the length of the root canals (endometry), the LASER is used to kill off dead tissue that remains in the root canal. Conventional cleaning of the main canal is done mechanical by so-called “endo-files” and the corresponding irrigations with antibacterial solutions which reach a depth of 300 µ (micrometers) in the dentinal tubules; though persisting bacteria in the ramifications and side-canals cannot be reached as they persists up to a depth of 1000 µ. By implementing LASER, residual bacteria can be killed in those fine side-canals (up to a depth of 1100 µ). With the development of the new light-conducting LASERS tips, the LASER treatment has shown to be very effective in cleaning and disinfecting root canal lumen as it has a bactericidal effect and reduces the risk of reinfection.