Endodontic Surgery

Endodontic surgery can help save your tooth in a variety of situations. The benefit of choosing endodontic surgery could be a healthy, functioning, natural tooth for the rest of your life.

Surgery may be used as a diagnostic tool if you have persistent symptoms but no problems appear on your X-ray. In such a case, surgery allows us to examine the entire root of your tooth, find the problem, and provide treatment.

Sometimes, calcium deposits make a canal too narrow for the instruments used in nonsurgical root canal treatment to reach the end of the root. So instead, Dr. Ahn may perform endodontic surgery to clean and seal the remainder of the canal.

Usually, a tooth that has undergone a root canal can last the rest of your life and never need further endodontic treatment. However, in a few cases, a tooth may not heal or it becomes infected. A tooth may become painful or diseased months or even years after successful treatment.

If this is true for you, surgery may help save your tooth. Surgery may also be performed to treat damaged root surfaces or surrounding bone.

Apicoectomy (Root-End Resection)

Although an endodontist can perform many surgical procedures to save a tooth, apicoectomy or root-end resection is the most common. When inflammation or infection persists in the bony area around the end of your tooth after a root canal procedure, Dr. Ahn may have to perform an apicoectomy.

In this procedure, the endodontist opens the gum tissue near the tooth to see the underlying bone and remove any inflamed or infected tissue. The very end of the root is also removed.

A small filling may be placed in the root to seal the end of the root canal, and a few stitches or sutures are placed in the gingiva to help the tissue heal properly. For months, the bone heals around the end of the root.

Intentional Replantation

In some instances, a procedure called intentional replantation may be performed. In this procedure, a tooth is extracted, treated with an endodontic procedure while outside the mouth, then replaced in its socket.

Other surgeries endodontists can perform are: dividing a tooth in half, repairing an injured root, or even removing one or more roots. Again, Dr. Ahn will be happy to discuss the specific type of surgery your tooth requires.

Endodontic Surgery Alternatives

Often, the only alternative to surgery is the extraction of the tooth. Dr. Ahn must replace the extracted tooth with an implant, bridge, or removable partial denture to restore chewing function and prevent adjacent teeth from shifting. Unfortunately, no matter how effective modern artificial tooth replacements are, nothing is as good as your natural tooth.