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Endodontics and Pulpal Diagnosis

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Abstract

When a patient presents to a healthcare provider, it is often with the expectation that the practitioner will “fix what ails” the patient. The practitioner must evaluate the patient’s condition, establish an accurate diagnosis, and offer treatment recommendations. Most often, the goal of treatment is to eliminate the disease process and provide a cure. In some cases, treatment may be palliative in nature or geared toward the management off a chronic condition which aims to provide a discrete level of health. In any case, an accurate diagnosis is essential; without it, any proposed treatment may result in an adverse outcome for the patient. In this chapter the various non-ionizing methods used to render the necessary information to establish an appropriate diagnosis will be discussed. Included are the various traditional procedures such as thermal and mechanical tests most frequently used in the dental setting. In addition, new tests that may provide a more accurate and direct indication of plural health, such as the pulse oximeter, optical coherence tomography, and ultrasound imaging will also be discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endodontics, UTHSC College of Dentistry, Memphis, TN, USA

    Jan M. O’Dell

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  1. Jan M. O’Dell
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Correspondence to Jan M. O’Dell .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Beckman Laser Institute, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Petra Wilder-Smith

  2. Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Janet Ajdaharian

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O’Dell, J.M. (2020). Endodontics and Pulpal Diagnosis. In: Wilder-Smith, P., Ajdaharian, J. (eds) Oral Diagnosis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19250-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19250-1_2

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