Comparison of treatment outcome between symptomatic and asymptomatic impacted mandibular third molars: a pilot study

摘要

Abstract Aim To determine and compare the treatment outcome between symptomatic and asymptomatic impacted mandibular third molars in the same patients who presented with bilateral impacted mandibular third molars. Methods This preliminary study was done at the Dental and Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic of our institution over a period of 18 months. The variables analysed were age, gender, socio‐economic class, duration of symptoms before treatment, types of impaction and complaints during the follow‐up. Descriptive and bivariate statistics were computed and the P value was set at 0.05. Results The sample was composed of 27 patients, and their ages ranged from 18 to 41 years with a mean age of 31 ± 2.3 years. There were more males than females, with male: female ratio of 1.1:1. The complication rate was 8 (29.6%) in 5/27 (18.5%) patients under symptomatic wisdom teeth impaction while in asymptomatic impacted teeth, the rate was 2 (7.4%) in 2/27 (7.4%) patients and this difference was significant ( P = 0.02). The complications occurred only in patients in the lower socio‐economic class ( P = 0.01) and in symptomatic cases, the longer the duration of symptoms before treatment, the more the complications ( P = 0.001). The complications following treatment were alveolar osteitis, numbness of the ipsilateral lower lip and hypersensitivity of the adjacent second molar. Conclusion This study shows that the surgical extractions of symptomatic and asymptomatic impacted mandibular third molars were associated with post‐operative complications that were more in the symptomatic cases. The findings in this study may have to be investigated further in a future study.