[Root canal treatment in Switzerland. The quantitative aspects--a determination of its status]

No recent data is available on the number of patients treated for root canal therapy in Switzerland. The aim of this study was to determine, by means of questionnaires, how many and which teeth were root canal treated in Switzerland by private practitioners. One questionnaire concerned the frequency of certain endodontic treatments performed during 10 consecutive working days. 30.1% of the posted questionnaires were correctly completed, returned and evaluated. Per dental practitioner, a total of 4.4 root canal treatments were begun during the 10 consecutive working days. A further 2.2 antiseptic dressings per practitioner were changed during the 10 days. Each dentist completed a root canal therapy on 5.3 teeth, 0.7 re-treatments and 0.1 pulpotomies during the 10 consecutive working days. 40% of all root canal treated teeth were molars which is rather high when compared to data available from other countries. Extrapolating the results to the entire Swiss population, 12.1 patients have a root canal therapy or a re-treatment per year. A similar result (12.9 patients) was recorded for the USA in 1979.