Healing after horizontal root fractures: 3 cases with 2-year follow-up
A 60-year-old male patient was referred to the Department of Conservative Dentistry at the Wonkwang University Dental Hospital (Iksan, Korea) for the evaluation of the maxillary anterior teeth. He had a history of trauma that had occurred 7 days previously. The patient's medical history was noncontributory. The initial diagnosis by the emergency dentist was horizontal root fracture on the maxillary right central incisor and avulsion on the maxillary left central incisor. According to the emergency note, a crown fragment of tooth #11 had been extruded with a large amount of diastases. The emergency dentist performed pulp extirpation on the crown fragment and the teeth were repositioned and splinted with a semi-rigid splint (). Root canal treatment was performed on coronal fragment of tooth #11 with K-file and irrigated with 5% sodium hypochlorite. Working length was established with an apex locator (DentaPort ZX). After 6 weeks of intracanal calcium hydroxide dressing, the canal was obturated with MTA (ProRoot) ().\nAt the 2-year follow-up evaluation, the patient had no complaints of pain or discomfort. Radiographic examination showed the root-fractured tooth was completely healed with hard and soft tissue between the fragments ().