Do Root Canals Cause Cancer?

My dentist recently said I needed a root canal treatment. I told him that I’d rather pull the tooth because there is less risk to my health. He said that was dead wrong and wanted to know where I was getting my information. I’d actually just heard about a study that showed root canals cause cancer. Can you help me find it so I can show my dentist?

Brent

Dear Brent,

The study that people keep getting this from is actually a composite of one study and another doctor’s observation about cancer patients. Both of them are very flawed, but I’ll tell you about them to help put your mind at ease.

Early last century, a Dr. Weston Price posited a focal infection theory. This was the idea that bacteria remaining in a root-canal-treated tooth or otherwise “dead” tooth could escape and cause diseases elsewhere in the body. To prove this, he did experiments, in the 1910s and 1920s, that consisted of the following.

1. He removed teeth from patients who had illnesses, such as arthritis or heart disease.
2. He implanted pieces of those teeth beneath the skin of rabbits.
3. He reported that some rabbits subsequently developed illnesses resembling those of the patients.

From this incredibly flawed study, he concluded that bacteria in treated teeth could produce systemic disease. His experiments lacked adequate control groups and used techniques that made contamination extremely difficult to exclude. Other researchers could not reliably reproduce the results. As a result, the theory was eventually rejected. I imagine if I implanted pieces of teeth from a diseased patient under someone’s skin, they’d also have a great chance of developing the disease.

Then, in 1951, a German doctor, Dr. Josef Issels, opened an alternative medicine clinic. He revived Dr. Price’s theory and started tracking his cancer patients. He found that 98% of his advanced/terminal cancer patients had root canals. Now I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase that correlation is not causation. This is a prime example of that. I can with full confidence say that 100% of terminal cancer patients regularly drank water. This does not mean people need to dehydrate themselves to help treat their cancer.

There have been decades of studies which show that root canal treatments are safe. If you extracted your tooth, which is a viable option, you would also need to replace that tooth, not just for the sake of appearance. If that tooth isn’t replaced, your adjacent teeth will tip or drift into the empty space, which shifts your bite and leads to jaw pain, headaches, and even TMJ disorder. The best tooth replacement is a dental implant, which requires surgery.

If your tooth can be saved with a root canal treatment, that is your best option. Don’t wait too long, because tooth infections are dangerous.

This blog is brought to you by a top-rated endodontist in San Antonio, Dr. Scott Janse.