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iquency
;urance register containing
er of tooth extractions had
he number of root fillings
veil documented that the
1r 2004) and it is assumed
ine in the number of tooth
:>le has changed over the
us and the use of dental
althier people will demand
eview also presented an
:I to a greater demand for
eople to demand a higher
:ersen & Holst 1995), and
tersen et al. 2004 ). The
has been available for 25
1out specific data on tooth
reatments per number of
I numbers.
iars can be understood as
1e number of root canals
1e reduced extraction rate
·eased treatment of multi­
. The molars were also the
.he tooth type of their last
'indings were observed by
iiological data. The bulk of
endodontic treatment was
Study I).
These time trends were confirmed by a recent 20-year radiographic re-examination of
a population in Sweden (Eckerbom et al. 2007), showing an increase in root canals
treated with increasing age and an overall increase in the number of root fillings.
They concluded that there is still a great need for endodontic treatment because the
frequency of teeth with apical periodontitis had also increased during the period.
Reasons for root canal treatment
The questionnaire survey among randomly selected GDPs (Study II) provided some
evidence that caries is still the main reason for root canal treatment. In the present
study the mailed questionnaire was accompanied by a letter guaranteeing
confidentiality including a coded and stamped reply envelope. Non-responders Vi.Cere
first approached by a reminder card and finally by a telephone call (Tan & Burke
1997). The use of coded reply envelopes led to a failure to respond by at least 1. 7%
of the GDPs. Ten practitioners questioned the anonymity (in spite of coded return
envelopes) and did not want to take part in the study. The final response proportion
(75.3%) was regarded as sufficient to make valid conclusions (Parashos & Messer
2004). A survey (Madarati et al. 2008) was recently performed amongst endodontists
and GDPs in the United Kingdom with a similar sample size (n = 476) and response
proportion (75% ). They concluded that such a response proportion should be
considered to be representative of all dental practitioners in the United Kingdom. In
that survey the nonresponse bias was assessed between early responders and late
responders. However, such an analysis was not carried out in Study II because the
number of late responders was very low (