Re-root canal treatment

[Falon]

Hi

I had my top premolar tooth root treated about 2 years ago. I have not had any problems with the tooth but recently my dentist noticed infection on an Xray he took of my root filled tooth. He has recommended doing re-root canal treatment on the tooth and trying again to see if the new root canal filling could work to stop the infection.

I would like to know how successful is re-root canal treatment and if redoing root fillings is better than pulling the tooth out and placing an implant in its place?

[Dr Mohsen J. Esfahani]

Hi

Thank you for your post. 1st time root canal treatment probably has a success rate of around 70-90% and probably varies depending on complexity, severity of infection and skill and experience of the dentist.

2nd time re-root canal treatment is probably around 10% less successful than the 1st root canal treatment. So re-root canal treatment is not as successful as 1st time root canal treatment on a tooth.

One can improve the chances of success of re-root canal treatment by seeing an experienced root canal specialist. Root canal specialists are experts in their field and use the most modern techniques and materials and so usually they are likely to do good root canal re-treatment. Although having said that, I know some general dentists who can do amazing root canal work too.

Dental Implant treatment is around 95% successful so its more successful than re-root canal treatment but it too can fail. If implant treatment fails you will be left with a gap and options of a bridge, denture or redoing expensive implant work again.

So if your tooth is saveable and its prognosis is not hopeless, in my opinion its better to do re-root canal treatment. If your tooth has a poor prognosis and is likely to need real heroic dentistry to keep it going for a few more years, in that situation you will be better off with an Implant.