In 1985, when Prof. Herbert Schilder was the President of the AAE, we wrote an editorial in the JOE saying that the future for Endodontists would be to perform mainly or exclusively retreatments, and he coined a new word “Retreatodontics”. As a matter of fact, in my practice I became a Specialist in retreatments, both in non-surgical and in Surgical Endodontics. Many are the mistakes that I am asked to solve, in order to avoid extractions and implants and let the patients to maintain their natural dentition. The common mistakes that I see almost every day include errors in diagnosis, in the preparation of the access cavity, in the shaping of the root canal systems, and their obturation. In Surgical Endodontics, the vast majority of mistakes are made by Oral and Maxillo-Facial Surgeons, who still today perform periapical surgery the way it was performed 50 years ago, without magnification, without the use of ultrasonic tips to make the root-end preparation, without the use of modern biocompatible materials and still using amalgam. During my lecture, I will examine all of these mistakes and I will suggest how to avoid them, in every single step of the endodontic therapy.

______________________________

In addition to running an endodontics practice in Florence, Italy, Dr Arnaldo Castellucci is a Past President of the Italian Endodontic Society, Past President of the International Federation of Endodontic Associations, Active Member of the European Society of Endodontology and of the American Association of Endodontists. A Visiting Professor of Endodontics at the University of Cagliari Dental School and Professor of Micro Surgical Endodontics at the Specialty in Oral Surgery at the University of Neaples, Dr Castellucci has served as the editor of The Italian Journal of Endodontics, of The Endodontic Informer and is currently serving as Editor in Chief of Endo Tribune. He is Founder and President of The Warm Gutta Percha Study Club and The Micro-Endodontic Training Center where he teaches and organizes hands-on courses. An international lecturer, he is the author of the text Endodontics and the text Micro Surgical Endodontics.