Epidemiology and prevalence of pulp and periapical pathologies

Objectives: to identify the prevalence and epidemiology of endodontic pathologies present in patients who attended the consultation at the School of Dentistry of the University of Cartagena. Methods: cross-sectional study, where endodontic clinical records were taken in 2015, with 630 and 285 clinical records in undergraduate and postgraduate respectively. Results: patients older than 45 years were the ones who attended the most for an endodontic consultation (71.7% in undergraduate and 55.7% in postgraduate). The female sex was the most prevalent (68% in undergraduate and 70.1% in graduate). The most affected dental organs were the upper anterior teeth in the undergraduate program (37.9%) and the lower molars in the postgraduate program (31.22%). The most prevalent etiology was bacterial (55%); and the most frequent diagnosis was asymptomatic irreversible pulpitis in both undergraduate (31.4%) and postgraduate (20%). Conclusion: nowadays most of the treatments performed in the clinics are due to pathological conditions that affect the pulp and the periapical area of the tooth, so it is of great importance for dentists to know the distribution and prevalence of these pathologies.