Abstract

Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the prognosis of root canal treatment done in the year 2012 in Penang International Dental College (PIDC), a 10 year retrospective institutional study and to identify the rate of success of root canal treatment performed by faculty members and students of the institution. Methodology: This retrospective cohort study involved a total of 136 respondents whose case files were collected and were interviewed telephonically for the follow up of 198 root canal treated teeth of those patients who came to the clinic in the year 2012, out of which 121 teeth could be followed up with and 77 teeth could not be followed up with due to the failure of reaching out to those respondents. A simple random sampling was conducted and data was collected from patients who gave consent. Information about the root canal treated tooth such as extractions, pain, swelling and infection, were collected and reasons regarding the extractions and retreatment were recorded. These reasons were considered to be failures of the root canal treatment while an intact tooth which did not require retreatment, extractions or experience any pain after 3 months of treatment were considered to be a success. The success and failures of root canal treated teeth were manually calculated and results were tabulated. Results: The results were calculated based on number of teeth that underwent root canal treatment of those patients who were reachable. The number of teeth of female patients was 61 and male patients were 60 giving a total of 121 patients who were reachable, out of which 49 teeth were treated by faculty members and 72 teeth were treated by students. The reasons of failures were recorded as pain (faculty = 3 teeth, students = 2 teeth) giving a percentage of 4.1% total, swelling (0%), extracted (faculty = 5 teeth, students = 6 teeth) giving a percentage of 9.1% total, retreatment (faculty = 4, students=2) giving a percentage of 5.8% total and infection (faculty = 1, students = 0) giving a percentage of 0.8%. Total of 97 teeth were successful (80.2%) and a total of 24 teeth were failures (19.8%). Conclusion: The 10 year retrospective study of the success rate of root canal treatment done in the year 2012 in PIDC is 80.2%.