Postoperative Pain and Success Rate in Pulpotomy Versus Root Canal Treatment

Overview

Pulpotomy has been proposed in the last decade as a definitive treatment of mature permanent teeth with irreversible pulpitis due to the better understanding of the pulp biology and development of bioactive materials . This technique involves removal of the coronal portion of the pulp that has undergo degenerative and irreversible changes to the level of the canal orifices and leaving the healthy vital radicular portion of the pulp. The surrogate marker for the degree of inflammation and the healing potential of the remaining pulp tissue has been suggested to be the ability to control the bleeding after pulp amputation. By preserving the pulp vitality, this can help in maintaining proprioceptive, reparative, innervation (tooth sensitivity), vascularization, and damping functions. The vital pulp can continue to serve the function of protecting the tooth from overload by means of protective feedback mechanism and preventing fracture because of the presence of pulp and organic tissue in the dentinal tubules..

The routine dental treatment for the patient diagnosed with symptomatic or asymptomatic irreversible pulpitis secondary to deep carious lesion is conventional root canal treatment. Root canal treatment is the preferred treatment option because of its superior success rate to other treatments . However, it is expensive, time consuming and complicated. Root canal treatment needs special clinical skills and high socio-economic status to afford the cost of the treatment. Unfortunately, in developing countries these can be un-reachable. Therefore, extraction is the only alternative option to the affected teeth . Moreover, a recent systematic review by Ng et al stated that the success rate of root canal treatment had not improved over the past few decades and molars had poor survival rates in comparison to non-molar teeth.In addition, It was stated that the survival rate of endodontically treated tooth is alarmingly low in comparison to vital teeth, especially molars, During root canal treatment many mishaps can occur such as perforations, ledges and extrusion of root filling, that reduces the longevity of root treated teeth . Carious pulp exposure of permanent molars in children is a very common unfortunate event faced in Pediatric Dentistry and Public Health department in Cairo university. This may be due to the low socioeconomic status, ignorance of patients attending that clinic, their wrong eating habits and their bad oral hygiene. Root canal treatment in an uncooperative young patient is very complicated which may affect the quality and prognosis of the treatment itself. Therefore, an economical, simple and conservative technique such as pulpotomy should be considered Pulpotomy has been proposed in the last decade as a definitive treatment of mature permanent teeth with irreversible pulpitis due to the better understanding of the pulp biology and development of bioactive materials . This technique involves removal of the coronal portion of the pulp that has undergo degenerative and irreversible changes to the level of the canal orifices and leaving the healthy vital radicular portion of the pulp. The surrogate marker for the degree of inflammation and the healing potential of the remaining pulp tissue has been suggested to be the ability to control the bleeding after pulp amputation.. By preserving the pulp vitality, this can help in maintaining proprioceptive, reparative, innervation (tooth sensitivity), vascularization, and damping functions.The vital pulp can continue to serve the function of protecting the tooth from overload by means of protective feedback mechanism and preventing fracture because of the presence of pulp and organic tissue in the dentinal tubules.The dentin -pulp complex will stimulate the formation of tertiary dentine or a mineralized barrier protecting itself . Compared to the root canal treatment, pulpotomy is considered less technique sensitive so it can be performed by general dental practitioners. Hence, It increases the patients' access to dental care and more clinicians will be able to provide the affordable treatment saving more teeth when the patients cannot afford the root canal treatment leaving extraction as a last treatment option. It is believed that the pulp tissue of the younger aged patients has higher healing capacity and regenerative powers than pulp tissue in older aged patients.