Wisdom Teeth

Patient Stress Impact on Tooth Extraction Complications

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An interesting article titled “The potential role of patient stress in rates of dental post-extraction complication” written by McDowall appears in the 2014 edition of Oral Surgery (vol. 7, pp. 162-167). The article explores whether stress, alcohol and tobacco use impacts the complication rate experienced after a tooth extraction. The authors recruited patients for the study who were at least 16 years old and having at least one tooth extracted. The patients were asked to fill out questionnaires incorporating the Global Measure of Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Fast Alcohol Screening Test (FAST) and questions related to tobacco use. The PSS consists of fourteen questions designed to determine how stressful the persons life is and higher scores indicated greater perceived stress. The FAST consists of four questions designed to determine the frequency too much alcohol consumption and higher scores indicate … Read more

Illinois Man Dies From Too Much Anesthesia While Having Teeth Extracted

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A 51 year old man from Illinois died after having five teeth extacted in July 2021. He had has teeth extracted by an oral surgeon in Lake County which is North of Chicago. During the procedure he was given as given a single dose of 200 milligrams propofol. There was no anesthesiologist present and the oral surgeon was the one also administrating the anesthesia. During the tooth extractions, the man stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest. Emergency responders were called and when they arrived took the man to a hospital where he died the next day. According to statements from the Lake County Coroner there was too high of a dose of propofol given and this dose would cause a person to not breathe. Further, the oral surgeon did not supply supplemental oxygen until the tooth extractions were already … Read more

Do Wisdom Teeth Surgery Informational Videos Decrease Anxiety?

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An interesting article titled “Does Viewing a Third Molar Informed Consent Video Decrease Patients’ Anxiety?” appears in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in 2018 written by Laskin et al. (vol. 76, pp. 2515-2517). The article discusses a study of 100 patients having impacted wisdom teeth removed and if watching a video during the informed consent process makes them more or less anxious. The authors were interested in such a study because in the past watching a video during the informed consent process of wisdom teeth removal has decreased anxiety in some cases but in other cases has increased anxiety. Further, if patients are more anxious prior to surgery they can be uncooperative which can cause the surgeon stress and lead to longer surgeries. In the study, 100 patients between 18 and 35 years of age having impacted wisdom … Read more

Using Dental Images to Find Strokes

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An interesting article titled “Association between internal carotid artery calcifications detected as incidental findings and clinical characteristics associated with atherosclerosis: A dental volumetric tomography study” appears in the European Journal of Radiology written by Niege Michelle and et al. (no. 145, 2021). The article seeks to determine if calcifications in the internal carotid artery (ICA) in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) can be associated with vascular disorders that can lead to stroke. Calcifications in the ICA are a risk indicator for ischemic problems in cerebral circulation, cerebral atrophy, and atherosclerosis in cardiovascular circulation. In the article the researchers started with 1176 CBCT exams from a database of a private dental records involving the preparation of dental implant placement. The researchers excluded many of those CBCT scans because the patients were younger than 40 years old or they did not have a … Read more

Panoramic X-Ray Showing Tooth Inside Chin Lights up Internet

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A man posted an image of a panoramic x-ray of his mouth in the midlyinteresting channel on Reddit and this caused the internet to light up. The Reddit user u/super9mega posted the x-ray with the caption “There’s a tooth in my chin.” Reddit users were quite amazed and the post has racked up over 50,000 upvoes and over 2,000 comments. The user explained that the tooth is not causing him any discomfort and he was not aware that it even was present prior to the x-ray he received by his dentist. It seems the consensus by the man’s dentist and also those commenting is that it would do more harm than good to attempt to remove the tooth. With wisdom teeth it is somewhat common to see completely horizontal wisdom teeth that do not erupt. Embedded teeth like this tooth … Read more