Analysis of radiographic errors done by dental students during root canal treatment

Abstract

Root canal therapy is largely based upon the information from the radiographic examination, providing information that was not clinically evident and errors during this procedure may induce an unsuccessful treatment and the need for repetitions, resulting for additional exposure to radiation to the patient. The aim of this pa- per was to verify the errors done when undergraduate students and Endodontics specialists take radiographs during the endodon- tic treatment, and to determine the areas with more incidence. Therefore, the apex distance in radiographic images was measured in each stage of the treatment. It was observed that the lower premolar areas presented the highest number of errors, both for undergraduate students’ and Endodontics specia- lists’ radiographs. The values of the apex distances were among 0.5 to 1.0 millimeters from the root apex. Key words: dental radiograph, diagnostic errors, root canal the- rapy, odontometry.