Endodontic Therapy versus Dental Implants: A Contemporary Dilemma

Clinicians are frequently facing the dilemma of weather to perform endodontic treatment in order to retain a necrotic tooth or to extract and replace it with a dental implant. According to recent reviews, the long-term survival rates of sound or even compromised teeth surpassed those of oral implants [1, 2]. During the last decade, the endodontic therapy improved continuously due to modern equipment and high technology, represented by nickel-titanium rotary instrumentation, magnification provided by operating microscopes and cone-beam computed tomography as a diagnostic method for difficult cases. Therefore, numerous studies discussed the benefits of preservation of necrotic and damaged teeth by non-surgical or surgical methods, compared to implants. A frequent issue was the long-term success rates, i.e. weather “the implant is better than a tooth” or “the implant is a more reliable abutment”.