More than 14 million teeth receive endodontic (root canal) treatment each year. Endodontic treatment is an alternative to extraction that allows you to keep your dentition intact for as long a possible. "Endo" is the Greek word for "inside" & "odont" is the Greek work for "tooth". Endodontic treatment treats the inside of the tooth. To help understand root canal treatment it helps to look at the anatomy of a molar tooth:

The tooth is comprised of three main parts: the crown, the root, and the dental pulp. The crown is covered by first enamel, then softer dentin makes up almost 80% of the tooth structure. The pulp is inside a network of small spaces in effect rendering the tooth hollow with the pulp occupying the hollow spaces. The dental pulp forms the root dentin during tooth formation, and root formation is usually complete about 2 years after the crown is first seen erupting through the gum tissue. The pulp is comprised of mostly connective tissue(80%), and other tissue types such as blood vessels, supporting cells, reserve cells, and nerve endings. At the root tip and is the apical foramen, small openings through which tiny blood vessels pass and supply the pulp with nourishment.

If the pulp is subjected to decay, trauma, or bacteria from a fracture the pulp becomes inflamed (pulpitst) or infected. Once entering the canal system bacteria may travel down the root space to the end of the root where they can exit into the surrounding bone. This situation is commonly called an abscess. Bacteria won't be content to invade only bone. They can move through the bone into the soft tissue which results in either drainage through the gum(sinus tract) or results in facial swelling.

Root canal treatment involves first making an opening through the crown of your tooth mechanically by using small files like miniature brushes and by liquid disinfectants. The canal system is dried and filled with a polymer called gutta percha and sealer. A temporary filling is used to close the access opening, and this filling hardens over the next hour or so. You should not bite or chew into hard or sticky foods while in temporary filings or temporary crowns. Not all teeth can have endodontic treatment. Using microscopes we can treat canals that we can not see with ordinary vision, but some canals become too calcified to treat even with a microscope. On rare occasions we find a tooth to be cracked in such a way that the crack couldn't be seen without beginning root canal treatment, and sometimes these teeth have to be extracted. There is no question, that with modern technology and with advanced trained endodontist, we are able to treat and save teeth that ten or twenty years ago would have been extracted.