Two Cases of Dental Caries on the Maxillary First Molar in Small Dogs

Abstract

A five-year-old female yorkshire terrier brought in for scaling, and a-five-year-old male miniature dachshund with the right infraorbital abscess were found to have decay on the occlusal region of the maxillary first molar tooth. Both affected teeth had pulp necrosis, lack of clinical crown, and periapical lesion, so we chose to extract them, because of the difficulty of repair. The postoperative progress of each dog was satisfactory. Histopathologically, the affected teeth were diagnosed as carious. These cases are rather rare, because carnivoraous animals such as dogs and cats have seldom been reported to have caries. In fact, we seldom encounter such patients in daily clinical work.