How long will the root canal treatment last?
Although we have a good idea of short term success rates for root canal treatment, we do not know what the long term failure rate is. This is because it is very difficult to follow up a sample group of patients for periods of 20-30 years. Any research of this type would be useless unless at least 50% of the patients could be reviewed at the end of the study. In today's increasingly mobile society, this is a challenge.
Anecdotally, it would appear that long term failure of technically good root canal treatments does not seem to occur in well maintained mouths. These teeth are more likely to be lost because they fracture or of gum disease, than because the root treatment fails.