Assessment of Postoperative Obturation Quality of Retreatment Cases - A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Conventional endodontic therapy emphasizes many factors which mainly emphasize root canal disinfection.
However there is a probability of endodontic therapy to give an unfavourable outcome such as persistent
clinical symptoms and unfavourable periapical healing. The frequency of failure is reported to be around 20%
and various factors contribute to it which mostly relies on the treatment procedure followed by the previous
operator. It is of paramount importance that postgraduate doctors should learn to treat these case scenarios
with high effectiveness. This study aims to assess the postoperative obturation quality of retreatment cases
done by graduate doctors. The study was done by using data collected from electronic medical records of
Saveetha Dental College, Chennai, India. The time frame of data collection was seen from June 2019 to
March 2020. A total sample size of 230 was assessed radiographically and the quality of obturation was
analyzed using 2 grading criteria in compliance with 2 operators. From the cases assessed, about 80% had
achieved correct radiographic length of obturation and about 70% of obturation was not of optimal quality.
Quality of obturation was not adequate. The length of root canal filling was desirable whereas the quality of
condensation was not adequate about 60% of the assessed cases