A dental bridge, otherwise known as a fixed partial denture, is a prosthesis used to replace missing teeth and is not removable by the patient. A prosthesis that is removable by the patient is called a removable partial denture.

A dental bridge is fabricated by reducing the teeth on either side of the missing tooth or teeth by a preparation pattern determined by the location of the teeth and by the material from which the bridge is fabricated. In other words the abutment teeth are reduced in size to accommodate the material to be used to restore the size and shape of the original teeth in a correct alignment and contact with the opposing teeth. The dimensions of the bridge are defined by Ante's Law: "The root surface area of the abutment teeth has to equal or surpass that of the teeth being replaced with pontics".

The materials used for the bridge include gold, porcelain fused to metal, or in the correct situation porcelain alone. The amount and type of reduction done to the abutment teeth varies slightly with the different materials used. The recipient of such a bridge must be careful to clean well under this prosthesis.

When restoring an edentulous space with a fixed partial denture that will crown the teeth adjacent to the space and bridge the gap with a pontic, or "dummy tooth", the restoration is referred to as a bridge. Besides all of the preceding information that concerns single-unit crowns, bridges possess a few additional considerations when it comes to case selection and treatment planning, tooth preparation and restoration fabrication.

Root canals is the commonly used term for the main canals within the dentin of the tooth. These are part of the natural cavity within a tooth that consists of the dental pulp chamber, the main canals, and sometimes more intricate anatomical branches that may connect the root canals to each other or to the root surface of the tooth. Root canals are filled with a highly vascularized, loose connective tissue, the dental pulp. This sometimes becomes infected and inflamed, generally due to caries or tooth fractures that allow microorganisms, mostly bacteria from the oral flora or their byproducts, access to the pulp chamber or the root canals; the infected tissue is removed by a surgical intervention known as endodontic therapy and commonly called 'a root canal'.

Tooth structure

An X-Ray of a recently performed Root canal procedure. The root was forming an abscess (infection), and as a result a bulb of some of the canal filling 'leaked' into the abscessAt the center of a tooth is a hollow area that houses soft tissue, known as pulp. This hollow area contains a relatively wide space towards the chewing surface of the tooth called the pulp chamber. This chamber is connected to the tip of the root of the tooth via thin hollow pipe-like canals—hence, the term "root canal". Human teeth normally have one to four canals, with teeth toward the back of the mouth having the most. These canals run through the center of the roots like pencil lead runs through the length of a pencil. The tooth receives nutrition through the blood vessels and nerves traversing these canals.