Tag Archives: space maintainer

Extraction of baby teeth

1. Why extract a baby tooth?

Choosing between extraction and filling or conservation is a very common decision that both dentists and patients have to take every day. With adults the decision making is much easier, if the tooth is restorable and the patient can pay for the treatment then we simply conserve the tooth. If the patient is a child then the process of decision making is much harder as many factors affect the selection of the treatment plan that the dentist have to follow. Continue reading →

Compensating and Balancing Extractions

When a practitioner is faced with enforced extraction of a primary tooth it is often a dilemma whether to merely remove the unsaveable tooth , to extract a contralateral tooth from the same arch (balance), or to extract a tooth from the opposing arch (compensation). The following guidelines are intended to assist in making such a decision and to minimise the effect of space loss on the developing dentition. There have been no properly controlled prospective randomised studies into the consequences of early loss of primary teeth, probably due to the difficulty of recruiting subjects for such studies and the need to follow them for up to 10 years. The recommendations given are therefore based partly upon current clinical opinion, although this is supported where possible by the best available research data. There is a need for more research in the area. Continue reading →