ROOT CANALS
What is a Root Canal?
Root canals are the long passages full of soft tissues deep within the dentin of a tooth, adjoined the pulp chamber. In dentistry, a pulpectomy is an endodontic treatment to cure an infection of the root canal; informally a root canal. A root canal, coupled with internal tooth bleaching, is also used to fix teeth that have been blackened due to infiltration of decayed soft tissue into the dentin in the teeth, most often seen in frontal incisors that have been injured thought a sudden impact.
Sometimes a tooth is considered so threatened (doe to internal cracking etc) that future infection is considered likely or inevitable, and a pulpectomy is advisable to prevent it. But usually, some inflammation and/or infection is already present, within or below the tooth.
To cure the infection and save the tooth, it is necessary for the dentist to drill into the pulp chamber, and remove the infected pulp by scraping it out of the root canals. Once that is done, the dentist fills the cavity with an inter material and seals up the opening.