Introduction

The radiographic control of the root canal treatment can evaluate the healing of the periapical lesions. The objective of this study was to determinate the characteristics of the radiographic healing that was observed after one year, during follow-up sessions; so, the healing of the lesions according to the periapical pathology at the beginning of the treatment and the causes of failure of the endodontic treatments were recorded.

Method

This is a prospective, observational, descriptive and longitudinal study, carried out in patients who attended control one year after endodontic treatment through the Periapical Index (PAI).

Results

A total of 395 teeth of patients who underwent endodontic treatment one year prior to data collection, 87 presented radiogaphically observable periapical lesions; of these, 40 (45.97%) attended the control at one year. The frequency of cases in which some degree of radiographic healing was observed one year after treatment was 97.46%. The pathology with more cases of complete healing was periodontitis with sinus tract. In general, 84.61% of the cases decreased two levels in their PAI after one year. The 100% of the cases of failure presented vertical root fractures.

Conclusion

The frequency of periapical healing after endodontic treatment is high. The main cause for the failure of the treatments documented in this study was the lack of coronal restoration that caused vertical fractures.

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