Prevalence of root canal treatment worldwide: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract

Background:The prevalence of root filled teeth (RFT) worldwide will inform about the amount of clinical activity of dentists dedicated to treat endodontic disease.Objectives: To carry out a systematic review with meta-analysis answering the following question: What is the prevalence of RFT around the world? The percentage of people with at least one RFT was also investigated.Methods: A systematic review including population-based studies using the following databases: PubMed, EMBASE and Scielo. Studies related to prevalence of RFT were included. The outcome of interest of the study was the prevalence of RFT. The meta-analyses were calculated with the Open Meta Analyst software to determine the global prevalence of RFT. Subgroups analyses were performed comparing geographical distribution, radiographic method and year of the study (classified in 20th or 21th century). The prevalence of people with at least one RFT was also analysed.Results: Seventy-four population-based studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria.Twenty-eight, forty-four and two studies reported high, moderate and low risk of bias, respectively. No obvious publication bias was observed. Prevalence of RFT was estimated with 1 201 255 teeth and 32 162 patients. The calculated worldwide prevalence of RFT was 8.2% (95% CI = 7.3%-9.1%; p < .001). The global prevalence of people with at least one RFT was 55.7% (95% CI = 49.6%-61.8%; p < .001). In 20th century, the prevalence of RFT was 10.2% (95% CI = 7.9%-12.5%; p < .001), whereas in the 21st century the overall calculated prevalence of RFT was 7.5% (95% CI = 6.5%-8.6%; p < .001). Brazilian people (12%) and the European population (9.3%) showed the highest prevalence of RFT. In Europe, 59.6% (95% CI = 52.4%-66.8%) of people has at least one RFT. Conclusions:This review showed that root canal treatment is a very common therapy throughout the world. More than half of the studied population have at least one RFT. A limitation of the present study is that most of the studies did not consider random sampling for population selection.

Post-treatment periapical status related to the quality of root canal fillings in adults living in Vojvodina

“…Still, despite the disadvantages related to the undesirable superimposition of anatomical structures, panoramic radiographs are useful for assessing the patients' overall dental health and for detecting periapical lesions 26 . These observations are confirmed by the findings of a recent systematic literature review indicating that majority of studies in this domain were based on panoramic radiographs, allowing their results to be compared and contrasted, which increases their external validity 27 .…”

EVL Promotes Osteo-/Odontogenic Differentiation of Dental Pulp Stem Cells via Activating JNK Signaling Pathway

“…Nowadays the main clinical treatment is root canal therapy (RCT) which involves the extirpation of the entire dental pulp and filling with an artificial material, resulting in a higher incidence of extraction. However, teeth after RCT are susceptible to fracture and more prone to mechanical damage, resulting in a higher incidence of extraction [3][4][5]. Recently, mesenchymal stem cell-(MSC-) based tissue engineering has shown immense potential for dental pulp regeneration, which was proposed as an alternative to conventional endodontic treatment [6,7].…”

Root filled teeth in two parallel Danish cohorts: A repeated longitudinal cohort study

“…Root canal treatments are performed to prevent or treat AP; however, it has been observed that a higher frequency of root filled teeth have AP compared to non-root filled teeth. It has been reported that 50% of the adult population globally has at least one root filled tooth and the global frequency of root fillings (RFs) is almost 10% (León-López et al, 2022). Increased tooth retention in ageing population may increase the proportion of root filled teeth (Kirkevang, 2018a).…”