Patients often do just fine with broken instruments in their teeth, according to a systematic review of the research reported in the Journal of Endodontics (May 2010, Vol. 36:5, pp. 775-780).
Researchers from Chulalongkorn University found two case-control studies covering 199 cases and calculated that 91% of these teeth healed with a retained instrument fragment.
The rate dipped to 80.7% when the patient had a periapical lesion.
"On the basis of the current best available evidence, the prognosis for endodontic treatment when a fractured instrument fragment is left within a root canal is not significantly reduced," the researchers concluded.
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