Root Canal Therapy

In his 22 years of practicing dentistry, Dr. Dagostino has performed root canal therapy on over 6,000 teeth. Endodontic therapy, or root canal therapy, has been performed by mainstream dentistry for over seventy years. Recent literature shows the success rate of endodontic therapy to be over 95%. Dr. Dagostino’s personal success rate exceeds 98%. The actual procedure is completely painless and relatively quick, taking anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours depending on the tooth. After the patient is numbed, a rubber dam is placed around the crown of the tooth. This allows Dr. Dagostino to maintain a high degree of sterility and use disinfectants to cleanse the canal systems. The canals are then enlarged and sterilized, dried, and prepared for the introduction of the gutta percha cones. These rubber cones serve to provide a hermetic seal within the canal system. The cones are seared off at the orifice and the tooth is restored. We do recommend full coverage crowns on the majority of root canal treated teeth, but as in all procedures we evaluate that on a case by case basis.