A STUDY OF SUITABILITY OF REFERRALS FOR PERIRADICULAR SURGERY

Objective To determine if the clinical and radiographic presentation o f patients referred by their general dental practitioner requesting pe riradicular surgery fulfilled a set of predetermined guidelines as to the appropriateness of the procedure. Design Multicentre prospective s tudy. Setting Maxillofacial departments of district general hospitals. Method Consecutive analysis of referrals within four hospitals over a 1-year period between 1995 and 1996. Results From 205 referrals, most ly of patients in the 30 to 40 years age group, 79.5% (n = 163) of ref errals failed to meet the criteria, mainly because of an unsatisfactor y root canal filling, but also due to obvious coronal microleakage and adjacent teeth contributing to the disease process not yet having rec eived endodontic treatment. In only 6.3% (n = 13) of patients had ther e been an attempt to retreat the pulp space infection by conventional means. Conclusion The majority of referrals in this study did not fulf il the guideline criteria on the provision of periradicular surgery. T he factors influencing failure in endodontics and periradicular diseas e did not appear to have been appreciated, or were not acted upon. Con ventional retreatment of the pulp space needs to be considered or atte mpted prior to referral for surgery.