Failed Root Canal
Sometimes there can be a failed root canal.
This is a case study on a root canal failure on lower anterior tooth.
Loss of the Tooth
A 65 year old male patient was having pain on a lower central incisor. The tooth was in poor alignment, sitting lingual to the remaining teeth. This tooth had a large lesion at the apex of the tooth which was treated with root canal therapy.
3 months later a x-ray revealed that the lesion was not healing but was in fact getting larger. So, this is a failed root canal treatment . And the tooth had to be removed.
Solution for the Failed Root Canal
The next question is what do you do to get a tooth in the small space? There was inadequate space for an implant, so the choices are to create more space for an implant (or bridge) or close the space. For this patient the decision was to close the space and move all teeth behind it forward.
Once the tooth was extracted the orthodontist was able to place a denture tooth as a temporary solution. This served as an esthetic measure while the extraction sight healed.
The space closure took place uneventfully with a nice result. A veneer was placed on an adjacent tooth to give a more pleasing contour to that tooth.
The treatment took place in a total of 9-10 months, and the patient is doing great with this 4 years later.
If you have read this far, I will confess that I was this patient. And I’m very happy with every step of the treatment!
Every dentist needs a dentist!