Prevalence of root canal treatment worldwide: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: The prevalence of root filled teeth (RFT) worldwide will inform about the amount of clinical activity of dentists dedicated to treat endodontic disease. Objectives: To carry out a systematic review with meta-analysis answering the following question: What is the prevalence of RFT around the world? The percentage of people with at least one RFT was also investigated. Methods: A systematic review including population-based studies using the following databases: PubMed, EMBASE and Scielo. Studies related to prevalence of RFT were included. The outcome of interest of the study was the prevalence of RFT. The meta-analyses were calculated with the Open Meta Analyst software to determine the global prevalence of RFT. Subgroups analyses were performed comparing geographical distribution, radiographic method and year of the study (classified in 20th or 21th century). The prevalence of people with at least one RFT was also analysed. Results: Seventy-four population-based studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Twenty-eight, forty-four and two studies reported high, moderate and low risk of bias, respectively. No obvious publication bias was observed. Prevalence of RFT was estimated with 1 201 255 teeth and 32 162 patients. The calculated worldwide prevalence of RFT was 8.2% (95% CI = 7.3%-9.1%; p < .001). The global prevalence of people with at least one RFT was 55.7% (95% CI = 49.6%-61.8%; p < .001). In 20th century, the prevalence of RFT was 10.2% (95% CI = 7.9%-12.5%; p < .001), whereas in the 21st century the overall calculated prevalence of RFT was 7.5% (95% CI = 6.5%-8.6%; p < .001). Brazilian people (12%) and the European population (9.3%) showed the highest prevalence of RFT. In Europe, 59.6% (95% CI = 52.4%-66.8%) of people has at least one RFT. Conclusions: This review showed that root canal treatment is a very common therapy throughout the world. More than half of the studied population have at least one RFT. A limitation of the present study is that most of the studies did not consider random sampling for population selection.

Automated summary

This study reveals that root canal treatment is highly prevalent worldwide, with over half of the population studied having undergone at least one treatment. However, a limitation of the study is the lack of random sampling in most of the included studies.