Pulp Horn Amputation
Today’s case is a 11 year old patient with a big caries on the second maxillary molar referred to me to save the tooth. My duty as endodontist is not only providing root canal treatments but also preserving teeth from them too.
In this particularly case I performed a pulp horn amputation.
These are the steps taken:
– Rubber dam isolation.
– Microscope magnification.
– Manual removal of the soft dentin with excavator.
– Pulp horn amputation.
– Disinfected and rinsed with NaOCl from “outside” to achieve haemostasis.
– Dried with sterile cotton pellets.
– Bioceramic capping.
– Direct glass ionomer as temporally filling on top.
Dentistry today is about the small details.
PhD. MSc. Dr. Pablo Salmeron.
B.
In this post I’m going to talk about vertical fractures regarding a case I had a few months ago, the one on the right picture. This maxillary first premolar was ready to get a root canal therapy but presented a mesiodistally vertical coronal fracture that continued to the furca which divided the tooth in two roots, bucal and palatal. The tooth had an old restoration on the distal side that was not in occlusion and that probably let the fracture appear on the mesial area where you can see the line fracture. The tooth was also sensitive to vertical percussion and had some mobility, however, there wasn’t significant evidence or bone loss on the radiographic tests.
Most of the vertical fractures are due to excessive concentration of loading over some areas of the root canal. Studies have shown that the curvature of the root canal seems more important than the external morphology of the root, in terms of stress concentration, the remaining thin dentin increases the magnitude but not the direction of the stress generated by forces. In fact as thinner the mesiodistal dentin walls are, the concentration of forces on the lingual and bucal walls increase the risk of fracture in this direction contrary to what one might think at first, more dentin thickness the harder it is to break in that direction, well… it is not like that.
Diagnosis vertical fractures are a challenge for the dentist because the symptoms are similar to a failed root canal treatment and usually radiographic test doesn’t show evidence of a fracture clearly. Another problem in endodontically treated teeth is often the filling materials doesn’t allow us to see the fracture line on the radiograph as they’re in the same plane. Patients may experience anxiety to thinking that the endodontic treatment is not working when, in fact, the problem is a fracture prior or post to the root canal treatment.