A team of dental professionals have launched a new campaign to help raise awareness of how root canal work can prevent teeth from being extracted.
The Saving Teeth Campaign, spearheaded by the Harley Street Centre for Endodontics, aims to raise awareness of the benefits of root canal treatment, particularly to patients who think they might have an infection which could result in tooth loss .
It comes in response to recent figures which highlighted a lack of root canal work in the UK. While around two million infected teeth were removed by dentists last year, only about 500,000 root canal treatments were undertaken.
Julian Webber, a leading root canal specialist, said: "While an extraction is sometimes inevitable, it should not be regarded as the easy option."
"Its true that it can be carried out quickly but afterwards many patients will not want a gap in their mouth and will seek some form of replacement, whether its an implant, bridge or denture, and these take time."
"Keeping your natural teeth is often more economical in the long term as well as being better for health ."
Nigel Carter, chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, commented: "The foundation thoroughly supports the aims of the saving teeth campaign in raising public awareness of the value of root canal therapy as one of the means available to todays modern dentist to help ensure all of the public achieve healthy teeth for life."
More information on the campaign is available online at Savingteeth.co.uk.




