Long-term, postsurgical results on teeth with periapical radiolucencies

Reported high failure rates of endodontic surgical procedures seemed to be inconsistent with the clinical impression of a high success rate. A retrospective study of endodontic surgical cases treated longer than 10 yr ago was done to look at long-term results. Forty-one teeth in 39 patients were able to be evaluated. These teeth had either an apicoectomy, an apicoectomy with a root-end amalgam, or in two cases, a root amputation. Of the 23 teeth that had an apicoectomy, 19 (82.6%) completely healed. Of the 16 teeth that had an apicoectomy followed by a root-end amalgam, 10 (62.5%) completely healed. Surgical endodontic procedures performed before the use of magnification, newer root-end filling materials, and ultrasonics, still had a high rate of success.