A 74-year-old male presented with intense pain and buccal swelling on tooth #30. His general dentist prescribed antibiotics. Upon examination, buccal swelling remained, and his pain had decreased from severe to moderate. The tooth was nonresponsive to cold and sensitive to percussion. The diagnosis was necrotic pulp with acute apical abscess.
"In a single visit, the GentleWave® Procedure thoroughly cleaned the three mesial canals with three separate exits and multiple distal canal paths which joined into a common exit. Furthermore, the furcal bone loss seen in the radiographs might have misled us into suspecting a cracked tooth. Instead, we saw how the lateral canal on the mesial surface of the distal root caused this furcation radiolucency, thereby avoiding condemning this tooth to a potentially unnecessary extraction."