Understanding Endodontic Retreatment in various dental practices.

Objectives: 1.To assess endodontic retreatment preferences and decision making among practicing dentists of Karachi.
2. To compare retreatment preferences of dentists with varying clinical experience.
Methods: A questionnaire was distributed by hand to dental teaching faculty at various institutions of Karachi and at some private practices. The questions gained information on aspects like: number of retreatment cases seen per month, most frequent cause of retreatment encountered in practice, use of medicaments & solvents, number of visits for retreatment, antibiotic prescription etc. Descriptive statistics & frequency distribution were computed. Chi-square test was applied to compare the difference between dentists having less than 5 years versus more than 5 years of clinical experience. Level of significance was kept at 0.05.
Results: We received only 58 forms out of 100 sent. Thus, the response rate was 58. The most commonly reported reason for endodontic retreatment was under prepared/ under filled canals. Gates glidden drills and hand instruments were the most commonly used endodontic instruments. Potaper was the preferred rotary system. Chloroform was the most preferred solvent. Calcium hydroxide was the most preferred intracanal medicament. There is a statistically significant difference between the dentists for endodontic retreatment and extraction decisions.

Conclusions: It’s alarming to note that almost half of the dentists reported inappropriate decision making in retreatment. Nearly 45% participants were confined to hand instruments only and 15% were not employing any solvent. This shows that in general, retreatment is not done as per the accepted standards.