Ankylosis.
Resorption, Trauma January 16th, 2007
This guy was asymptomatic. A removable partial denture hooks onto the 13 and the endo in 12 was done 1.5-2 years ago. His current dentist was a little concerned with the resorptive defect on the root of the 3.
Percussion produced a higher pitched sound on the 3 than the other teeth, and when I checked mobility, there wasn’t even any physiologic movement.
I diagnosed ankylosis, replacement/external resorption, and told the patient to consider replacement options. He’ll probably be ok leaving the tooth alone for now, but if the replacement resorption is still active, he will lose the tooth sooner than later.
These are all things we see with teeth that have been traumatised (avulsed in particular). The only history of “trauma” to this tooth is the RPD…
January 17th, 2007 at 9:10 am
eek, i wouldn’t want to try that extraction. i wonder how they would be able to get it out and leave enough solid bone for an implant.
January 17th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Yeah, good question.
I don’t know if I could even do a regular extraction on anyone anymore.
January 18th, 2007 at 5:15 am
If you wait long enough for more of the root to undergo replacement resorption, an implant shoudn’t be a problem because there’ll be plenty of bone.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:11 am
That’s what I was going to say. The only thing is that the RPD will probably snap the crown off a compromised root before the root has time to fully disappear.