Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Oral and Dental Medicine - Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Endodontically treated teeth are proved to be more brittle than vital teeth and have low fracture resistance. This low fracture resistance could be attributed to the moisture loss or the loss of tooth structure whether due to caries or due to endodontic treatment procedures. Consequently, intracanal posts are indicated in cases of endodontically treated teeth with severe tooth structure loss in order to retain the coronal restoration. One of the serious complications that may occur for these teeth, is the vertical root fracture which may occur during tooth function even after a long period of post insertion or even during placement of an improper post type or size.The diagnosis of the cases suspected clinically to have vertical root fracture is very crucial. Owing to the limitations of superimposition of periapical radiography, the usage of CBCT in those cases has been increased.The current in-vitro study assessed the accuracy of CBCT different voxel sizes in the detection of vertical root fracture in single rooted endodontically treated teeth restored with glass fiber posts. Root canal treatment followed by glass fiber post insertion was induced to the whole sampled teeth. Artificial longitudinal fracture was induced using hard tissue microtome device in 38 out of 76 single rooted teeth. While the other 38 were left non-fractured. All sampled teeth were imaged with CBCT with four different voxel sizes; 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, and 0.4 mm. The detection of the vertical root fracture was based on two scoring systems: four-point scale that was used to denote the confidence in diagnosing the examined teeth. Score 1: fracture is definitely not present, Score 2: fracture is probably not present, Score 3: fracture is probably present; and Score 4: fracture is definitely present. Also, the binary scale was used to denote whether no root fracture is present (zero) or root fracture is present (1)

Issued also as CD