Dr. Katie To explains why root canal-treated teeth can still harbor chronic infections. The tree-like structure of root canals, especially tiny branches at the apex, can't be fully cleaned by instruments, trapping bacteria that the body tries to expel through the root tip.
When the tooth dies, it necroses, which means it rots. And when it rots here, there's no way that you can get that material out. What happens? The body eventually over time, even if you've had a great root canal, will start to dump things there. It says, hey, there's some infection here. Let me go in there. And the bacteria get through the root end and they can cause a lot of infection. And we see 100% of the time chronic infection around teeth that are symptomatic after root canal therapy. Every once in a while you'll have a root fracture because someone bit down on something hard. But look at these canals. Reminds me a lot of trees. And so as you get closer to the end, they're very small. Even though we have very advanced devices now to do root canal therapy, the root canals, the practitioners cannot get in this architecture. There's no way that can be cleaned out and sterilized for you.
