wisdom teeth removal

Removing Wisdom Teeth May Improve The Periodontal Health of Remaining Teeth

by

An interesting article titled “Removal of Symptomatic Third Molars May Improve Periodontal Status of Remaining Dentition,” by Carolyn Dicus-Brookes and et al. appears in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (vol. 71, pp. 1639-1646, 2013). The article seeks to explore the impact of removing wisdom teeth on the periodontal status of adjacent second molars and other teeth located in the mouth specifically for patients who have mild symptoms of pericoronitis. As discussed recently over at Upcoming Changes to JOMS and AAOMS in 2014, select articles in JOMS will have press releases written by AAOMS staff to accompany them. This is one of those articles so that feature appears to have already been rolled out. To get an idea of what the press release entails I will briefly describe it. It is very short (less than 10 sentences) and fits … Read more

Do Oral Surgeons Prescribe Too Many Narcotics for use after Wisdom Teeth Removal?

by

A new article published in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery is titled ” Narcotic Prescribing Habits and Other Methods of Pain Control by Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons After Impacted Third Molar Removal,” by Ibrahim Mutlu, A. Omar Abubaker, and Daniel M. Laskin (vol. 71, pp. 1500-1503, 2013). The article explores the issue of whether or not oral surgeons regularly prescribe more than an adequate amount of narcotic pain killers to young adults after their wisdom teeth extraction. It has been believed by some that the narcotics given by oral surgeons for wisdom teeth removal can be a source of using narcotics for non-medical uses. In this article a 8 question survey was sent to 100 randomly selected oral and maxillofacial surgeon members of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon (AAOMS). The questions were related to whether … Read more

Can a Persistent Headache be Caused by Sinus Problems?

by

I came across an interesting article that appeared over a year ago in the Washington Post. The article is titled “A man’s persistent headache proves hard to diagnose and harder to treat,” by Sandra G. Boodman, and published on March 19, 2012. Article Link: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-03-19/national/35448791_1_headache-sinus-pain-relievers The article discusses a 41 year old man who developed a constant headache in November of 2008. Over the course of many months the man consulted many neurologists, ear nose and throat doctors, ophthalmologist, and others but none could explain what was causing him the headache. The man is quoted as saying “I’d been chasing this for more than six months. No one could tell me what it was. I just remember thinking, ‘How am I going to be able to function if it never goes away?” Over the course of the treatment the man … Read more

Potential Risks of Surgery for Wisdom Teeth (Third Molars)

by

M. Anthony Pogrel in his article “What Are the Risks of Operative Intervention?” in the Journal of Oral and Maxilofacial Surgery vol. 70, pp. 33-36, 2012, suppl. 1, goes into complications associated with removing impacted wisdom teeth (third molars). I have previously explored this topic in detail over at http://www.teethremoval.com/complications.html. Although I did a poor job of distinguishing actual complications from negligence. In the article, Pogrel describes how studies have indicated that around 10% (1 in 10) of people undergoing removal of third molars may suffer from a complication. However, most of these complications are mild and will completely resolve in time. Pogrel states “Complications from M3 removal can be divided into 2 groups: those that are short-lived and self limiting, including bleeding, inflammatory complications such as surgical site infection and alveolar osteitis, or “dry socket,” drug reactions, displaced crowns … Read more

Association Between Partially Erupted Mandibular Third Molar and Caries in Distal Second Molar

by

An interesting article titled “Association between the presence of a partially erupted mandibular third molar and the existence of caries in the distal of the second molars,” appears in the International Journal of Oral and Maxilofacial Surgery by S. G. M. Falci and et. al. (October 2012, pp. 1270-1274). The article mentions how previous studies have shown that caries on the mandibular second molar due to the presence of partially erupted third molars has varied between 7% and 32%. The article criticizes prior work where studies based their prevalence data on panoramic radiographs which is not as good as periapical radiographs when diagnosing caries. The authors state “The lack of sample characterization, the absence of sample calculation, the deficient or inadequate statistical analysis and the absence of a description of the eligibility criteria, discredits the scientific evidence of these previous … Read more