Patients report more discomfort after surgical endodontic retreatment than non-surgical.

Objective To observe any systematic difference between surgical and non-surgical endodontic retreatment of endodontic failures. Design Randomised controlled trial. Intervention Surgical or non-surgical endodontic retreatment. Outcome measures Patients recorded pain and swelling each postoperative day for 1 week using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Use of analgesia was also recorded. Results Ninety-two patients were included in the study. Pain and swelling was significantly higher in the surgically retreated patients with 67% of patients in the surgical group recording use of analgesics compared with 16% in the non-surgical group. Only surgical patients reported absences from work post-treatment. Conclusion Surgical retreatment resulted in more pain and swelling than non-surgical retreatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]