Assessment of periapical health, quality of root canal filling, and coronal restoration by using cone-beam computed tomography

Abstract

Aim: The purpose of this study is to use cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) to describe the prevalence of apical health, the quality of root canal filling, and coronal restorations of endodontically treated teeth in the east Anatolian subpopulation of Turkey. Materials and Methods: CBCT scans were taken from 748 patients attending for the 1(st) time to the clinic at the Oral Diagnosis and Radiology Department at Ataturk University's Faculty of Dentistry in Erzurum, Turkey. All images were analyzed by two research assistants who were trained using examples of CBCT images with and without the presence of periapical radiolucency. The two examiners assessed images from the experiment independently, and the readings were then compared. All data were entered on an MS Excel 2007 spreadsheet and SPSS software 15.0 which was used for statistical analysis. The Chi-square test was used to determine if a patient's periapical status was associated with the technical quality of root filling, coronal status, and to evaluate differences between tooth subgroups. Results: In total, 147 teeth from 748 patients were found to have been treated endodontically. Sixty three teeth were found to have short root canal fillings, whereas 74 teeth had adequate root canal fillings, and the remaining 10 teeth had over extended root canal filling. A significant correlation was observed between the length of root filling and apical periodontitis (P = 0,023). Inadequately dense root canal filling was observed in 141 teeth, whereas adequately dense filling was found in only six teeth. There was a significant correlation between the density of root filling and apical periodontitis (P = 0.044). Coronal restoration was found in 90 teeth, but was not observed in all the three teeth. A crown was present in 54 teeth. There was a significant correlation between coronal restoration and apical periodontitis (P = 0.028). Conclusion: The results indicate that the quality of both the root filling and restoration were found to have impact on the periapical health of root-filled teeth.