Indrė Kaučikaitė¹, Tautvydas Juška²

¹Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Faculty of Odontology Kaunas, Lithuania

²Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine Kaunas, Lithuania

Abstract

Background: Dental procedures are known to be one of the most common iatrogenic causes of Trigeminal nerve damage. Endodontic treatment comprises approximately 10% of all iatrogenic Trigeminal nerve damage cases. Inferior Alveolar nerve is known to be the most frequently damaged branch during dental treatment. The symptoms of damage might last for a few months and sometimes the nerve fibers are damaged permanently. The patients experience various face and oral region sensory disorders. The aim of this research is to review the literature containing Trigeminal nerve damage caused by endodontic treatment, the prevention and treatment of Trigeminal nerve neuropathies after the iatrogenic accidents.
Materials and methods. The search was carried through electronic databases PubMed and UpToDate using the keywords “Trigeminal neuropathy”, “Endodontic treatment”, “Root canal treatment”.

Results: The articles containing clinical trials, case reports and systematic literature reviews were chosen for the analysis. This literature review contains Trigeminal nerve neuropathy caused by endodontic treatment procedures, the prevention and treatment methods in seeking for the best patient-centered results.

Conclusions: 1. Trigeminal nerve neuropathy is a serious health disease severely affecting the patient’s life quality and the treatment of this disorder is complicated as the problem is often hardly solved. 2. Root canal treatment is a frequently carried dental procedure usually applied due to prevention of caries complications and tooth loss. As in every medical procedure, endodontic treatment might cause several iatrogenic complications. Trigeminal nerve damage is one of them. In order to avoid possible iatrogenic complications, it is important to choose the safest root canal treatment measures and strictly follow the root canal instrumentation and obturation protocol. 3. It is important to involve the dentist, oral surgeon and neurologist into Trigeminal neuropathy treatment caused by endodontic procedures in seeking for the best patient – centered treatment outcomes.

Keywords: Trigeminal neuropathy, endodontic treatment, root canal treatment.