Successful Endodontic Treatment of a Maxillary Permanent First Molar with Two Palatal Roots - A Case Report

Endodontic therapy or root canal therapy is a sequence of treatment for the infected pulp of a tooth which results in the elimination of infection and the protection of the decontaminated tooth from future microbial invasion (6). The clinician should have a thorough knowledge of both normal and abnormal anatomy of the root canal system of the treatable tooth and its variation in order to achieve successful and predictable outcome with root canal treatment (8). Human molars show considerable anatomic variation and abnormalities with respect to number of roots and root canals. Maxillary frist permanent molars are normally considered to be three rooted, one palatal and two buccal. In some cases of maxillary frist permnant molar, the supernumerary palatal root, if present, is typically located either mesiobuccally or distolingually. The frequency of two palatal roots is low (0.4 %-1.4 %) and only a few cases have been reported in the literature (1, 2, 17). In this regard, an unusual canal anatomy associated with some maxillary frist permnant molars have been investigated in several studies (7, 10, 11, 12, 13). They reported a variation in the number and morphology of root canal systems of some permanent maxillary first molars in which the palatal canal had a single orifice, but a trifurcation in the apical third with three separate foramina have been confirmed.