Thirteen year recall - root fracture; sixteen year recall failure - implant

By Terry Pannkuk

Here’s a patient that returned today.  Free CBCT to see what was going on with #3 that I retreated in 1997.  There was a vertical fracture coursing into the MB2 root orifice a couple millimeters.  There was a 4mm sulcular defect associated with the area in 1997 and a 6mm one today.  The patient has been asymptomatic with no awareness of the tooth.  The #7 tooth that I treated in 1994 had been extracted and replaced for a reason the patient could not remember; probably split with a large post or microfracture propagated by the pin buildup.

A previous MB2 had been missed and chronic path had resulted in inflammatory root end resorption of the DB apex.  Note the semicircular radiolucency on the transverse section associated with the previously identified cracked root area. The radiolucency clearly disappeared at the 6mm level at the same depth it probed.