Is rubber dam always required?
A. The short answer to this is Yes. Rubber dam is important for a number of reasons. Medico-legally a situation of carrying out any root canal procedure and an instrument becoming swallowed or inhaled without the operator using rubber dam is indefensible. Also we know the success of our root canal treatment depends on removing bacteria from the entire root canal system. If we dont isolate the tooth well enough saliva will re-infect the tooth making our intervention irrelevant. The rubber dam also prevents our irrigants, usually bleach, from entering the patients mouth, allowing us to work in a much more relaxed manner. Therefore we can see the vital importance of being slick at rubber dam placement, something with a bit of practice is really straight forward.
