The incidence of failure following single-visit endodontic therapy

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the incidence of failure following single-visit endodontic therapy. The study involved 1,140 teeth in 918 patients. One-year recall evaluations were performed on 925 or 81.8% of the teeth. The endodontic failure rate was found to be 5.2%. No significant difference was found between the tooth groups (anterior and posterior, maxillary and mandibular); however, significant differences were found among the problem code groups (teeth with pulpal pathosis, teeth with periapical extension of pulpal disease, endodontic periapical extension of pulpal disease, endodontic retreatments, and intentional devitalization cases). Also, the incidence of failure was higher in those teeth with periapical extension of pulpal disease which had no prior access opening.