Systematic Review Of The Published Literature On Success And Failure Rates Of Nonsurgical Endodontic Treatment

Purpose: The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature on treatment results in non-surgical Endodontic therapy. This included researching and defining inclusion and exclusion criteria and applying these criteria to identified relevant publications. The overall goal was to analyze the available literature and synthesize these results in an effort to inform the profession on the success and failure rates in non-surgical root canal therapy. Materials and Methods: Inclusion and exclusion criteria were established in an effort to systemically review and formulate an evidence-based understanding of treatment results in non-surgical root canal therapy. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using using PubMed and the Cochrane database using the search terms root canal therapy, apical periodontitis, success, failure, and treatment outcome and was restricted to January 2009 through December 2011. Articles were reviewed and analyzed according to the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Results: A review of the abstracts for these 330 publications resulted in 51 publications articles to be examined more closely for relevance and inclusion. From this, no publication met all defined inclusion/exclusion criteria. Discussion: Defining a set of criteria for how success is defined in practice is vital to the field of Endodontics. It is important to define, establish and incorporate a standardized methodology in the way research is conducted on Endodontic treatment results. This is necessary for the application of research to the practice of evidence-based Endodontics