ArticleBMC oral health2020
Environmental sustainability in endodontics. A life cycle assessment (LCA) of a root canal treatment procedure.
Article in BMC oral health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Review
- Life Cycle Assessment of Impacted Tooth Surgery Under Different Clinical Scenarios.Dentistry journal · 2026Article
- Green Dentistry and Sustainability in Oral Healthcare: A Systematic Review.Dentistry journal · 2026Review
- Environmental Impact of a Tooth Extraction: Life Cycle Analysis in a University Hospital Setting.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2026Article
- A scoping review exploring carbon emissions in dentistry-a step towards sustainability.BMC oral health · 2025Article
- Sustainable Dental and Periodontal Practice: A Narrative Review on the 4R-Framework-Reduce, Reuse, Rethink, Recycle-And Waste Management Rationalization.Dentistry journal · 2025Review
- Vital pulp therapies in permanent teeth: what, when, where, who, why and how?British dental journal · 2025Review
- Integrating sustainability in dentistry: a pathway towards achieving the UN 2030 agenda.Frontiers in oral health · 2025Review
- An Investigation Into Contaminated Waste Composition in a University Dental Clinic: Opportunities for Sustainability in Dentistry.Clinical and experimental dental research · 2024Article
- Materials Science Toolkit for Carbon Footprint Assessment: A Case Study for Endoscopic Accessories of Common Use.ACS environmental Au · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo analyse via life cycle analysis (LCA) the global resource use and environmental output of the endodontic procedure. METHODOLOGY: An LCA was conducted to measure the life cycle of a standard/routine two-visit RCT. The LCA was conducted according to the International Organization of Standardization guidelines; ISO 14040:2006. All clinical elements of an endodontic treatment (RCT) were input into OpenLCA software using process and flows from the ecoinvent database. Travel to and from the dental clinic was not included. Environmental outputs included abiotic depletion, acidification, freshwater ecotoxicity/eutrophication, human toxicity, cancer/non cancer effects, ionizing radiation, global warming, marine eutrophication, ozone depletion, photochemical ozone formation and terrestrial eutrophication.
resultsAn RCT procedure contributes 4.9 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) emissions. This is the equivalent of a 30 km drive in a small car. The main 5 contributors were dental clothing followed by surface disinfection (isopropanol), disposable bib (paper and plastic), single-use stainless steel instruments and electricity use. Although this LCA has illustrated the effect endodontic treatment has on the environment, there are a number of limitations that may influence the validity of the results.
conclusionsThe endodontic team need to consider how they can reduce the environmental burden of endodontic care. One immediate area of focus might be to consider alternatives to isopropyl alcohol, and look at paper, single use instrument and electricity use. Longer term, research into environmentally-friendly medicaments should continue to investigate the replacement of current cytotoxic gold standards with possible natural alternatives. Minimally invasive regenerative endodontics techniques designed to stimulate repair or regeneration of damaged pulp tissue may also be one way of improving the environmental impact of an RCT.
Indexed as
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.