Dental treatment in Chimpanzees

Even our closest relative, the chimpanzee will benefit from professional dental care from today on.

After having treated various exotic and untypical patients such as chinchillas, ferrets, guinea pigs, hamsters on top of our common patients, cats, dogs and horses the dental team decided to expand experience by helping this 27 year old male chimpanzee from the Ganserndorf  apehouse, called Jakob, see Fig.1 (poor quality photo since we couldn’t use the flash in order not to stress/scare Jakob).

 

Our new friend, Jakob needed immediate help since he was in pain and was feeding poorly due to multiple dental problems.

 

After we packed all our equipment; which consisted in full anesthesia equipment, X-ray device and developer , portable dental unit, all professional dental instruments, our team left for Ganserndorf.

The team consisted of myself (DDr. Camil Stoian), Mag. Helene Widmann (dental station), Dr. Hubert Simhofer (equine specialist) and Dr. Gudrun Schöffmann (anesthesia).

 

Following adequate pre-operative preparations we were ready to anesthetize Jakob, which was performed from step one, pre-anesthesia, sedation, maintaining  inhalation anesthesia and post-anesthesia, to final step, analgesia and pain control management, in an exquisite and professional manner by our anesthesia specialist Dr. Schöffmann, see Fig. 2.

Only after appropriate sedation we were able to fully asses the situation following full-mouth X-rays and visual evaluation.

Several extractions had to be performed since most of the molar teeth were either surrounded by periodontal disease modified bone and ligament see, Fig. 3 (mandibular right side molars), or totally "eaten away” by caries, Fig. 4 (maxillary central incisors), or a combination of the two pathologic processes, Fig. 5 (maxillary left molars).

We started an assiduous operation, consisting in removal of root remnants, fractured crowns and profound caries destroyed teeth, see Fig. 6.

The procedure lasted 2 hours and was performed without any interruptions due to anesthesia and/or technique special incidents, see Fig. 7.

 

The dentition in chimps is amazingly similar to that of humans (no wander-our closest relatives) with the exception of the canine teeth which resemble rather those of dogs, see Fig. 8, thus we can assume the danger of over-trusting our friends, a bite might bring serious consequences.

Some of the intra-operatory images are presented in Figs. 9, 10, 11 and 12. After performing the extractions, since most of the alveolar bone was completely destroyed by the periodontal degenerative process and, as a consequence the damage was increased compared to a normal tooth extraction we had to apply sutures, by simple interrupted suture technique, and using a resorbable, size 3.0, cutting needle, vicryl suture material.

 

Since the operation lasted 2 hours, which was considered maximum allowed for Jakob, taking into account all factors related to: age, blood analysis results, and immune status, we decided to perform the next step consisting in conservative dental treatment (caries treatment by amalgam and composite filling and root canal treatment where applicable) with another occasion.

 

Next day we heard that Jakob was well received by his group and started gradually to feed.  Now, one week later we know he is doing really well, eating all the bananas he wants without any dental pain.

DDr. Camil Stoian PhD, Mag. Helene Widmann