Dentists in India have successfully carried out a “root canal” procedure on a 27 year old elephant which had been suffering from tusk-ache for 5 years.
A three-member team of dentists helped by a veterinary surgeon carried out the two-and-a-half-hour operation on the male pachyderm which developed a cavity in one of its tusks, they said. The operation took place in early November after the owner of the pet elephant brought the animal for an examination of the infection that had damaged the tusk. “We decided to use the traditional root canal process as a remedy,” dentist Sunil Kumar told AFP in state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
The elephant had a six centimetre cavity in its tusk: photo AFP
In a procedure claimed to be the first of its kind in the world, an elephant in Kerala has successfully undergone a conservative dental treatment to repair his cracked tusk. Twenty-seven-year-old Devidasan, the tusker from Thrissur, had been living with a crack on its tusk for the past five years which was causing him discomfort.
The elephant’s owner and Dr. V. Sunil Kumar, Forest Veterinary officer, approached Dr. C. V. Pradeep, Conservative dentist and Endodontist of Kannur, to see if the crack could be treated and beauty of the tusk restored. Dr. Pradeep, former principal of Pariyaram Dental College, and currently professor and head of the Department, PSM Dental College, Thrissur, first extensively studied the structure of the tusk and found that that the elephant tusk and human teeth had similar structure. He chose a method of treatment based on the histology of the tusk. Dr. Pradeep told PTI that the 50 cm long and 4 cm deep crack was filled using micro and macromechanical bonding using light cure composite resin. The resin was bonded to the elephant dentin by using nano-filled bonding agent. The dentin was cleaned, microblasted and etched. Bonding agent was applied layer by layer and light cured two weeks ago.
The animal was not tranquilised during the treatment which took two and half hours and it was fully cooperative throughout the procedure, Dr. Pradeep said.
Lot of water and dirt was accumulating in the tusk and if the crack was not treated, it would lead to the death of the pulp and result in pus formation which could endanger the animal’s life, he said. The elephant could not be taken for temple festivals as the crack on the tusk was not pleasing to the eye. The treatment was a challenge and this was the first time in the world that a ‘conservative approach’ was followed and no part of the tusk was removed, he said.
Finding the equipment to treat the pachyderm was an elephantine task. “We had to modify and customise some of the equipment”, he said adding some of the equipment had to be made specially for the procedure. About 47 tubes of composite resin was used to fill the crack, he said. The cause of the crack in the tusk is unknown. However the owner of the elephant was conscious of the consequences of the widening crack and hence had requested for the treatment. The animal has now recovered and has already started going for temple festivals.
Dr. Pradeep was assisted by Dr. Jayaprasad Kodoth, Prof. of Periodontics, Kanhangad and Dr. George Jacob, of PSM Dental College, Thrissur.
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