Endodontic Treatment vs Implant: The Art of Decision Making

Abstract

During more than half a century, dental implants have evolved into a viable treatment solution for missing teeth. Application of dental implantology have been dramatically broadened, including the single tooth implant. Since the beginning of modern dentistry, the only treatment option for restoring compromised teeth was endodontic treatment followed by an appropriate prosthetic restoration. However, nowadays single tooth implants are also proposed to patients with compromised teeth as an alternative, creating one of the biggest modern clinical questions in decision making: Endodontic Treatment or Implant?

The answer to this question is both elusive and complex. First, one should ask themselves whether implants and endodontic treatments have the same indications. Moving on, the factors affecting the prognosis of both treatment options should be clarified as well as the choice of an appropriate outcome measure. Some of these factors might be depended on the clinician (experience, restorative choices etc), on the patient (general health, mouth hygiene etc) or even on the country and dental system (treatments costs, insurance coverage etc). Lastly, in order to clarify how all the abovementioned factors affect our decision-making process, a review of the most important and reliable comparison studies between these 2 treatment options is often helpful.

This presentation aims at providing the clinician with well-revised information to facilitate this everyday clinical dilemma. The decision-making process will be broken down step by step and each step will be reviewed through the eyes of both an endodontist and an implantologist. By means of argumentation and discussion on both theoretical and practical issues, the lecturers will try not to give a single solid answer to the treatment vs implant dilemma but rather arm the attendee with the means and confidence necessary to make their own choices in every case individually.