Two years ago on OsseoNews.com, a reader wondered whether dental implants were impacting endodontics. Many replied, stating their opinions on the issue. Some subscribers suggested that there was definitely a current paradigm shift towards dental implants and away from root canals happening. Other subscribers disagreed, objecting to that opinion and suggesting that endodontic treatment was not going to be impacted by dental implants in any way.
Then, just last week, the AAE (or American Association of Endodontists) presented new findings which appeared to support root canals as a better treatment choice versus dental implants. But how compelling is this new research?
The findings were first published in the Journal of Endodontics, the official publication of the American Association of Endodontists. The research was compiled as part of a greater project which compared endodontic and dental implant outcomes, and was funded by the AAE’s own foundation.
Researchers essentially compared the outcomes of teeth that were removed and replaced with an implant versus teeth that were treated endodontically, via a root canal. They looked at the success and failure rates for both. The conclusions reached by the study suggested that the success and failure rates for both types of treatment were similar, but the data itself pointed to the fact that significantly more patients who received the dental implants ended up needing further treatments or other surgeries than did those patients who had teeth that were treated with root canals (i.e. endodontic treatment). In fact, only 1.4% of patients who received root canals needed subsequent treatments, whereas 12.4% of those who received dental implants needed further intervention.
The head researcher, James Hannahan, D.M.D., noted that while the outcomes of both procedures are similar, implants have higher rates of complications immediately following the procedure as well as higher failure rates over the long-term. Saving the natural tooth, however, as is done with a root canal, usually lasts for the patient’s lifetime and does not often require any further treatments.
Given this new research, we wonder whether or not this study really provides the final conclusion to the debate over dental implants versus endodontic care. What has been your experience – are endodontic treatments really more advantageous than dental implants? Do implants really have higher failure rates and more complications? What do you think the future holds for the cost of dental implants? What has been your personal experience with patients who have chosen one treatment over the other, and were they satisfied with their choice? (Unfortunately, there is very little in the AAE’s research study that addresses the issue of patient satisfaction, which we consider to be of primary importance when choosing one treatment over the other.)