Assessment of intraoperative risk factors for surgical difficulty in surgical extraction of impacted mandibular third molar – A prospective study.

Abstract

The extraction of impacted third molars is among the most common surgical procedures carried out in the field of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. For proper planning of surgical extraction, especially for impacted mandibular third molars the estimated level of surgical difficulty of the case is important. This study was conducted to evaluate the intraoperative risk factors contributing to surgical difficulty in extraction of impacted mandibular third molars and consequently the post-operative outcome. Here, we have undertaken a study in which the intraoperative variables were considered, to evaluate their contribution for surgical difficulty and postoperative complications in surgical removal of 100 impacted mandibular third molars. Three variables were found significant associated with total surgical time intervention, i.e., surgeon’s experience (p=0.006), Inter-incisal opening (p=0.032), and cheek flexibility (p=0.004). Total surgical time intervention for ‘right side’ was higher with 49.20 ± 17.94 minutes (p=0.691). Total surgical time intervention for ‘gagging reflex present’ was 50.21 ± 17.812 (p=0.674). Multiple linear regression shows that surgeon’s experience was the only predictor (p<0.001). The surgical difficulty of impacted mandibular third molar are likely to depend on the intraoperative factors like Surgeon’s time, surgeon’s experience, check flexibility, and inter incisal mouth opening.