Endodontic therapy is a conservative measure developed and dedicated to saving natural teeth that otherwise may have to be extracted. Even though modern dentistry offers a wide variety of tooth replacement options, retaining your natural dentition is still the best choice for your overall long-term dental health. Retaining your natural teeth helps maintain an intact dental arch. The dental arch is  an arrangement of teeth in the jaw that a person develops once all of their permanent teeth have grown in.It also helps to maintain your current occlusion, or the way your upper and lower teeth meet. It prevents other teeth from shifting and overerrupting. It maintains a healthy bone structure and a person’s ability to masticate (chew) food. In many cases, it prevents lip and cheek collapse and keeps your face looking young and healthy. Retaining your natural teeth reduces the need to undergo preparation (shaving down) of neighboring teeth when constructing a partial non-removable denture (a bridge), and reduces your chance of needing an implant surgery later on. In the majority of cases, a root canal therapy and the restoration that follows is a more conservative treatment plan in terms of time, effort, and resources spent.

There is a wide variety of diseases that can affect your dental pulp (the tissue that inhabits the inner root canal system of the tooth). Even though in the majority of cases the main goal is to prevent invasion of bacteria, not all endodontic therapies deal with the types of infections you may be familiar with. In the majority of cases, oral antibiotics are not necessary as a supplement to endodontic therapy.