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Quality of Endodontic Treatment and Prevalence of Apical Radiolucencies in a Bulgarian Subpopulation: a CBCT Analysis
Teodora Karteva1, Neshka A Manchorova-Veleva1, Ekaterina Karteva1
1Medical University of Plovdiv, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Introduction:
The advent of Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) in endodontics has enhanced the diagnosis of periapical radiolucencies and the assessment of endodontically treated teeth.
Aim:
The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of periapical radiolucencies in a Bulgarian subpopulation and the quality of previous endodontic treatment using CBCT scans.
Materials And Methods:
This study included 2795 roots from 160 Large FOV CBCT which were evaluated by two independent examiners using two scoring systems: CBCT-PAI and PESS.
Results:
The inter-examiner agreement spanned from strong to almost perfect (0.892 and 0.983). The prevalence of periapical lesions according to the two scoring systems was 23.1% and 12.9 %, respectively. The prevalence of endodontically treated teeth was high (34.1%). Sixty-five percent of them presented with signs of periapical radiolucencies, while only 1.4% of all non-treated roots had a periapical lesion. A significant association between periapical disease, poor quality of the root canal filling and inadequate coronal seal was found (p<0.001).
Conclusions:
The prevalence of periapical disease in endodontically-treated teeth in the Bulgarian subpopulation was high. Poor qual-ity of the root canal filling and inadequate coronal seal were assessed as prognostic determinants of treatment failure. CBCT techniques can augment conventional diagnostic techniques in the field of endodontics.
