Techniques for treatment and continuing education for patients whose teeth have pulpal and periradicualar disease

Key Points

• The importance of the use of rubber dam in endodontics must be stressed to dentists.

• Changes in the treatment philosophy in endodontics in the past few years means that dentists who qualified more than 16 years ago are likely to be practising outdated techniques.

• Continuing education in endodontics, especially with 'hands an' courses, is necessary to update skills and techniques.

Abstract

Objective

To identify techniques commonly used in the management of periradicular disease by general dental practitioners and to ascertain views on continuing professional education in endodontics.

Design

Data was collected via a postal questionnaire distributed to 617 general dental practitioners in Scotland (33% of practitioners registered with the Dental Practice Board).

Results

417 (69%) questionnaires were completed and returned. Only 24.9% of respondents used rubber dam routinely. The majority of respondents used hand instruments for preparation with either sodium hypochlorite or local anaesthetic being used most frequently for irrigation. The mean time for treatment of a single rooted tooth was 71 minutes. The demand for continuing education courses was high with 340 and 197 respondents requesting endodontic and rubber dam courses, respectively.

Conclusions

Traditional methods for preparing the root canal using hand instruments were favoured by most dentists. The major disincentive to the use of rotary instruments and new techniques for obturating with thermally softened gutta-percha was expense. The importance of rubber dam isolation requires reiteration and more continuing education courses are required to update clinical skills.

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