Is the tooth #19 Salvageable?
Forty-eight-year-old lady has multiple restoration. One day she returned to clinic, requesting extraction of #19 because of chip. "I am not comfortable with that tooth anyway". She has lived in China, Germany and USA. She cannot recall the history of treatment involving #19. Positive finding is mild percussion. We have taken multiple PAs for #19. They all look like the one on the right. It appears that one of mesial canals is missing. It must be difficult to remove silver cone for RCT retreat. The patient is ready for implant. It seems that the tooth is nonsalvageable.
Treatment plan is to extract the tooth atraumatically by sectioning and place an implant in 6 weeks.
Can you guess what will surprise you most when the tooth is removed?
Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 03/02/2011, last revision 07/20/2011