Dental Education Lecture: Healing of Central Cusp Infection

Fig.1	Fig.2	Fig.3

As mentioned before, central cusp is a common tooth abnormality by birth associated with Chinese offspring.  If left untreated or treated improperly, it causes severe root tip infection (abscess).

A gentleman in his early twenty's presented to my office for comprehensive exam and treatment about 18 months ago.  X-ray shows that the teeth #28 and #29 have silver fillings on the occlusal surface (Fig.1, *).  The nerve of the tooth #29 (arrowheads in Fig.1) is larger than that of the tooth #28.  There is an area of shadow around the root tip of the tooth #29 (indicated by red dashed line in Fig.1).  All of the evidence suggests that the tooth #29 has root tip infection.  We need to do root canal for it.

Fig.2 shows that root canal was just finished.  The main canal space (green arrowheads) and side canal space (red arrowhead) were filled.  You may also notice the dark shadow around the root tip.

Approximately 15 months later, the abscess was almost completely healed (Fig.3).

The miracle healing after root canal can be also found in older generation.

Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 05/21/2009, last revision 07/05/2009