Laser root canal treatment, its procedure and cost

Gone are the days when you had painful dental clinic visits; modern-day dentists use lasers to reduce pain and infection in painful dental procedures such as root canal.

Everyone knows that timely dental procedures are required for overall health, comfort, and general well-being. One of the most common procedures is a root canal. A root canal is a procedure conducted when the inner soft tissue of the teeth is damaged or inflamed, resulting in intense pain. One of the best ways to get relief from this pain is endodontics or root canal therapy.

A typical root canal procedure includes the removal of the diseased pulp from the tooth and the roots trailed by thorough disinfection by using irritants like sodium hydrogen peroxide. After that, the dentist will place inert filling material, does coating with cement or resin cement along with guttapercha thermoplastic material. Even if root canal procedures are generally successful, many reports show a 4 – 6 percent failure rate, which requires patients to have another RCT done. In many cases, that particular tooth can't be saved, or the tooth would have broken badly or decayed badly for which it would be recommended for extraction.

But do you know lasers are now one of the viable and proven means for performing root canals?

Lasers have been successful in the medical field for many years. In recent decades, the emergence of lasers in dentistry has proven to be highly beneficial. A root canal is a standard endodontic procedure and is no longer painful, and is considered helpful compared to traditional root canal therapy.

The results of root canal treatment depend on effective disinfection of the root canals. In traditional root canal treatment, there is cleaning and disinfection of root canals which involves mechanical debridement and the use of chemical agents such as chlorhexidine, sodium hypochlorite, etc. But with this chemi-mechanical approach, you might not achieve complete sterilization. It may sometimes lead to re-infection and failure of the whole process. But with Lasers, complete root canal disinfection is now possible. Mainly, the Laser is utilized for seizing the infection and developing a sterile atmosphere in the infected root canals.

A laser-assisted root canal is one of the fantastic accomplishments in dentistry. It has helped in overcoming the flaws of traditional root canal treatment. As a result, you can leave the fear behind, go for a laser-assisted root canal treatment, and save your infected tooth.

How is a root canal treatment performed using Laser Dentistry?

In a laser root canal treatment, at first, mechanical removal of debris with irrigation and instrumentation is carried out, then mechanical and chemical irrigation along with instrumentation is done to remove the debris or tissue. After, which a parallel beam of light is passed on into the root canals. The intense light energy helps kill the bacteria in the root canal and eliminates all debris and dead tissues, disinfecting the root canals. Then, typically, a laser drill is utilized to reach the tooth's pulp chamber. Next, a soft tissue laser sterilizes the tooth structure from the chamber to the dentinal tubules, leading to the tooth's center. Then the hollow section is filled up with cement lining along with guttapercha, and the tooth is then capped.

The whole process takes significantly less time, is more effective, and is painless when compared with the traditional root canal process. In addition, it is less invasive and makes the foundation for achieving long-term success of the root canal treatment.

What Benefits can you get from laser-assisted root canal therapy

When done with the help of a Laser, root canal therapy is less aggressive, making it painless and decreasing postoperative complications such as swelling, bleeding, and pain.
The whole process takes significantly less time, laser-assisted root canal treatment with proper disinfection can help reduce the number of visits to the hospital.
Every root-canal treatment requires local aneasthesia but in some cases laser-assisted root-canal treatment help minimize the need to give patients local anesthesia as it is a painless procedure.
Lasers help attain good disinfection of the root canals, and helps us in ensuring high success rates.
The whole treatment is more precise where there is less drilling of the tooth required and assists in the preservation of solid tooth structure.
As the whole process is less invasive, it leads to fast healing.
The chance of infection and contamination is significantly less because of lasers.

What is the Cost of laser-assisted root canal treatment?

The cost of laser root canal treatment varies. While the traditional root canal treatment method is affordable, laser treatment costs can be slightly high. Laser-assisted root canal therapy can cost around Rs.4000- Rs.15000. Various factors may affect the price of Laser-assisted root canal therapy, like the level of infection, condition of the tooth, and other factors like the dentist's expertise and setting.

Research is still being conducted on using Laser in dentistry as the desired method for a root canal. Patients with symptoms of root canal infection must start consulting a dentist today to know if a laser-assisted root canal treatment is suited for them. You can contact a dentist on India's Largest Dental platform MyDentalPlan.

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Suprithi Choudhary, M.Pharm (Pharmacology) Medical Content writer

Suprithi is a Pharma Professional working as a medical content writer and previously worked as a Research Scientist and Senior Research Analyst

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