Longitudinal tooth fractures - Diagnosis

Longitudinal tooth fractures are either mesio-distal or bucco-palatal fracture lines in the crown, root or both. They can cause a variety of symptoms in the affected tooth. Longitudinal tooth fractures typically cause problems that are difficult to detect and diagnose.

While in some instances no effective treatment is yet available and the tooth must be extracted, prevention and early detection of longitudinal tooth fractures is important. Often longitudinal tooth fractures are misdiagnosed resulting in unnecesssary and ineffective treatment.