Wisdom Tooth Extraction

Removal of Impacted Wisdom Teeth

Wisdom Tooth Extraction is a very common procedure in maxillofacial surgery. Impacted wisdom teeth have a very high prevalence in adult and child populations.

Impacted wisdom teeth can cause severe physical discomfort and often lead to further medical complications in the surrounding area.

Because of this wisdom tooth extraction is one of the most popular procedures in maxillofacial surgery and one that should be made as efficacious and efficient as possible.

Wisdom Tooth Extraction – Literature Review

Today we will examine the following study on impacted wisdom teeth :

Thomas B Dodson, Associate Professor and Visiting Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon ^# and Dr Srinivas M Susarla, Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery^#.

First they look at prevalence of impacted wisdom teeth and the need for wisdom tooth extraction: “The incidence of impacted wisdom teeth is high, with some 72% of Swedish people aged 20 to 30 years having at least one impacted third molar“.

Furthermore the findings showed that problem wisdom teeth led to high rates of maxillofacial intervention: “Between 30% and 60% of people who retain their asymptomatic wisdom teeth proceed to extraction of one or more of them between 4 to 12 years after their first visit.”

While this only looks at the Swedish population if the findings can be extrapolated it certainly points to a alarmingly high prevalence of wisdom tooth complications and the need for safe and effective treatment of impacted wisdom teeth.
They look at the findings of studies which look at procedures like prophylactic extraction and active surveillance to determine effectiveness of different methods.
Surprisingly they found there was no “definitive benefit for one technique compared with another.”

Does the research here suggest that the methods for tooth extraction are all pretty good and therefore non variable, or does it point to a flaw in their studies focus?

What they can definitively say is : “there has been no controversy about the need to remove symptomatic teeth and those showing pathological changes such as infection, non-restorable caries, cysts, tumours, or destruction of adjacent teeth and bone”.

Impacted Wisdom Teeth – Best Outcomes?

Clearly removal of symptomatic impacted wisdom teeth is necessary. It just so happens that this study hasn’t found any evidence to suggest one method of extraction is better than another.

Because the outcomes of maxillofacial surgery on an impacted wisdom tooth are overwhelmingly positive I will take the leap to suggest that all methods are effecitve but maybe our criteria for judging which is best should be further examined.