(TC43) Application of Krasner and Rankow’s Laws to Calcified Teeth

Abstract: Krasner and Rankow’s 2004 “Anatomy of the Pulp Chamber Floor” is a classic and clinically useful text. Several of their “laws” including the law of centrality, law of concentricity and law of CEJ are widely taught to dental practitioners learning to access teeth for endodontic therapy. However, their study was done on teeth with intact pulp chambers, and their observations may not apply to highly calcified teeth. Anecdotal evidence suggests that in highly calcified teeth the pulpal floor is not always significantly darker than the walls. The purpose of this table clinic is to present the similarities and differences between intact teeth and calcified teeth in regards to these observations. Extracted teeth with patent or calcified pulp chambers will be sectioned at the cementoenamel junction using an Isomet diamond saw. High-resolution photographs of the pulpal floor obtained using the ZEISS OPMI pico dental operating microscope (DOM) will be presented. The DOM and high-resolution, color photography will allow us to highlight this classic text and provide more clinically useful information on applying Krasner and Rankow’s laws to highly calcified teeth.