Cases Requiring Retreatment Due to Missed Canal - A Retrospective Analysis

The success of endodontic therapy requires thorough knowledge of root anatomy and its variations. A good debridement and cleaning of the root canal system of any infected pulp tissue and filling of the root canal space with an inert material prevents or minimises any chance of reinfection. This cannot be achieved when the clinicians fail to locate one or more canals. Hence this retrospective study was undertaken to analyse the teeth requiring re root canal treatment due to missed canals. Data of patients undergoing retreatment in Saveetha dental college was collected and reviewed to identify cases with missed canals. The data was tabulated and Chi square analysis done using IBM SPSS software version 20. Of all the cases analysed, 6.5% cases underwent retreatment due to missed canals (P value- 0.003 < 0.05; Chi square test). Within the limitations of this study, failure to locate and properly debride the canals is still one of the reasons for failure of root canal treatment, even with the advancements in diagnosis and magnification currently available.