A week of diseased canine teeth in cats

It seems like some weeks have themes.  This week it was diseased canine teeth in cats.  You may have already read about Sadie.

There was this tooth in an geriatric kitty named Trixie.

The root was undergoing external resorption from an old fracture and had severe periodontal disease.

The tooth had to be extracted.  And the other upper canine was not in much better shape and needed to be extracted as well.  Trixie is a very sweet kitty and did great.  Even at age 13!

Then there is this kitty.  She is only seven years old and had all her cheek teeth removed about 3 years ago.  Since then she has had progressive periodontal disease of all 4 canine teeth.  So we went ahead and removed the all remaining teeth.  I was hoping that when we removed all of her other teeth 3 years ago that she would be able to keep these for longer, but some animals have more severe periodontal disease for reasons that we do not entirely understand.

Cats do amazingly well without their teeth.  I have lots of kitty patients without any teeth. It is much better to have healthy gums than diseased teeth.  

I wonder what next week's theme will be?

Cats get dental disease too!

This is Sadie.  She is a much loved member of her family.  She has chronic kidney disease, but is doing great.  (She is a little sleepy from the pre-medication as she would not stay still for her pre-operative photo session!)

My posts thus far have focused on dogs (plus one Lemur) so I want to give some examples from the feline species.  Cats have dental problems that are similar to dogs, although cats are more prone to a condition called tooth resorption.  Sadie was referred because the family veterinarian discovered this during a dental cleaning.

The canine tooth on this upper jaw is obviously fractured and the surrounding bone is enlarged.  The radiographs looked like this.

The bone surrounding the tooth has been destroyed over time by the infection that resulted from the pulp canal being exposed.  The tooth died and the root is also being destroyed. 
The treatment was surgical extraction of the tooth and removal of all the diseased tissue.  Here is how it looked after surgery.

And here is Sadie about one hour after recovering from anesthesia.  She woke up hungry!

Sadie was a pleasure to treat.  I am sure she will feel much better with the diseased teeth gone.

Some dogs have all the (bad) luck when it comes to teeth

This is Zeb. You will have to agree that Zeb is one of the cutest dogs ever.  He came in for a dental evaluation and treatment with a history of severe halitosis and numerous extractions due to periodontal disease.  It was obvious during the physical examination that Jeb was one of the unlucky dogs when it comes to teeth. He had severe and chronic periodontal disease.  Periodontal disease is the most common infection in dogs and cats.  Most dogs and cats over 5 years of age will have some level of periodontal disease.  The disease is caused by a combination of many factors including plaque, type of bacteria in the mouth (over 700 different anaerobic bacteria have been isolated from under the gums in dogs alone!), breed, general health, dental home care and genetics to name a few.  In most dogs and cats the combination of regular professional cleanings and home care will allow them to keep healthy teeth well into their later years of life, but some dogs seem to have severe disease even with really good care.  Such is the case with our happy and very friendly dog, Zeb.  Dogs like Zeb probably have some superinfection of bacterial that result from an ineffective immune response.  The good news is that removal of the teeth stops the infection, odor and pain. 

As always, radiographs of all the teeth are needed.  This did not look all that bad.

But look at the radiograph.  There is very little bone supporting the teeth.

Again this looks normal.

But once again the radiographs tell the story.

In addition to the severe bone loss, two of the incisors in the image had wide pulp cavities compared to the other teeth.  This indicates that these teeth died when Zeb was young.

We had to remove most of the remaining teeth in Zeb's mouth and he was just a happy to see us after surgery as before!  I was happy to tell the owner that fresh breath is here to stay!

I love boxer dogs!

I really love boxers. I seem to see a lot of them in my practice.  It may be because one of my clients travels the Carolinas rescuing boxers that find their way into shelters.  He takes them home and works with a great organization, Carolina Boxer Rescue, to help find them good homes. One of their boxers even ended up at my house to live out her last years.  Her name was Brandy and she was one of the sweetest dogs I have ever met.  But I digress!  I may also see a lot of boxers becuase they have a bunch of interesting dental problems not limited to: traumatic occlusions, gingival hyperplasia, missing adult teeth, extra adult teeth, and impacted adult teeth.  Last week we treated Alex III (from a long line of great boxer dogs).

Alex III had several of the common boxer dental problems. This included impacted teeth, as seen on the dental radiograph below.

There was also an extra premolar and all the premolars visible had significant tooth root resorption.  Alex III also had an extra maxillary first premolar as seen on this dental radiograph below.

Alex III did not need the extra teeth, and the impacted teeth can result in cyst formation so we removed them. He did great and served as a reminder that all boxers need dental radiographs!

Visit westsideanimal.com to learn more about veterinary dentistry.

Where did the roots go?

I had a very interesting case last week that further illustrates why dental radiographs are necessary to practice modern veterinary dentistry.  Bailey is a very sweet, 11 year old Golden Retriever that was referred because she had several broken teeth that looked like the upper 4th premolar pictured below.

This tooth did not need any treatment beyond cleaning, but the same premolar on the other side had to be extracted due to advanced endodontic disease and external tooth root resorption. But as often is the case we found some other problems.  The tooth that is pictured above on the lower jaw in the very back of the mouth appeared very normal, but look at the radiograph.

This second mandibular molar should have 2 tooth roots, but as you can see they were missing.

A very similar problem was discovered in the other side.

On the left mandible the second and third premolars had disappearing roots. 

We do not know what causes this problem, called tooth resorption, and it is much more common in cats.  The only treatment is extraction.  The affected teeth were extracted and Bailey did great.