Page 100 - Demo

Chapter 698system negatively affect the sealing ability of the root filling [18]. Furthermore, it has been reported that exposure to calcium hydroxide not only reduces the flexural strength and the fracture resistance of the dentine [19], but also, in cases of extrusion into periradicular tissues, causes irreversible changes such as paraesthesia and necrosis [20,21]. The use of calcium hydroxide intracanal medicament is not without risk and undergraduate students may experience difficulty in placing a medicament into the root canals [22]. In undergraduate clinics, root canal treatment usually takes several visits [23]. The use of calcium hydroxide intracanal medicament might be more relevant in undergraduate clinics than in other clinics. The patients in undergraduate clinics who are confronted with an interappointment emergency are less likely to have the root canal treatment completed, and incomplete root canal treatment may pose a risk to the patient’s general health [23]. However, scientific evidence on which to assess whether calcium hydroxide intracanal medicament reduces the risk of interappointment emergencies is lacking. Up to two days following intervention, the use of calcium hydroxide does not reduce the incidence and intensity of pain [24], but pain or swelling that necessitates an emergency visit may as well present later.Since it has not yet been verified whether the use of calcium hydroxide as an intracanal medicament reduces the risk of interappointment emergencies in undergraduate clinics, this retrospective cohort study analyzed the incidence of interappointment emergencies during molar root canal treatments performed by undergraduate students in more than one visit. Molar root canal treatments were studied because both the number of visits to complete a root canal treatment [23] and the incidence of interappointment emergencies is higher in molars [1,25]. In this study, treatments that were performed without the use of an intracanal medicament were compared to treatments performed with the use of calcium hydroxide intracanal medicament. Materials and MethodsThe ethics committee of our institution independently reviewed and approved the research protocol of this study (nr. 2017013). Written informed consent was not required for this retrospective cohort study. Subjects’ rights have been protected. This study followed the STROBE checklist for cohort studies. Annemarie Baaij.indd 98 28-06-2023 12:26