Wisdom Teeth Removal in the Eldery
An interesting article titled “Third Molar Complications in the Elderly—A Matched-Pairs Analysis” appears in the 2017 edition of the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery written by Baensch et al. (vol. 75, pp. 680-686). The article explores the perioperative morbidity of wisdom teeth removal in elderly patients to better determine the long-term future burden on waiting until old age to have wisdom teeth extracted. The article addresses how if there is less early (prophylactic) wisdom teeth surgery in young adult patients this will inevitably lead to an increasing number of elderly patients with persisting problems with wisdom teeth that necessitate their removal and this can lead to potential complications. In the article the authors devised a study to compare patients 65 years old or older to patients between the ages of 15 and 20 after having wisdom teeth removed. A … Read more