Determining the Correct Course of Endodontic Retreatment With No Patient History Available

Forensic endodontics is an empirical concept that has a clinical application. By definition, forensic endodontics is the determination of the diagnosis and etiology of a patient's tooth pain and/or periradicular radiographic lesion on a tooth that has been previously endodontically treated. Forensic endodontics diverges from conventional endodontic retreatment in that the patient has no recollection of when the tooth was treated or by whom, and the clinician has no access to any past radiographs to assess the healing progression of the previous endodontic treatment. To determine the correct course of endodontic therapy, the clinician needs to make a proper pretreatment diagnosis and determine the etiology despite the absence of a treatment history. In forensic endodontic case scenarios, the retreatment options are conventional nonsurgical endodontic retreatment, surgical endodontics, or extraction. An intentional replantation surgical case is presented as a clinical example of performing forensic endodontics.