Disimpaction of Mandibular third molar: The impact of age and gender on postoperative pain and swelling using partial and complete wound closure techniques

Abstract

Objective: The surgical removal of impacted mandibular third molar is a common procedure in oral surgery clinic, and is usually associated with post-operative morbidities that affects patients’ quality of life.  The study was to evaluate the impact of age and gender in the postoperative pain and swelling following surgical removal of mandibular third molar.

Methods: A total of 120 subjects of ages between 18 to 45 years who met the inclusion criteria and consented, were recruited into the study. They were allocated into two groups. Group 1 had complete wound closure while group 2 had partial closure. The research subjects were evaluated for the degree of pain and swelling at 24 hours, 3rd and 5th days postoperatively using verbal rating scale (VRS) for pain and visual analogue scale (VAS) for swelling. The chi (x2) test was used to determine associations between categorical variables and a p-value of 0.05 or less was considered significant.

Results: There were 62 (51.7%) males and 58 (48.3%) females, the mean age of the participants was 31.7 ± 5.7. Most patients fell within the 26 to 35-year-old age groups.  Pain and swelling were maximal between the first 24 to 48 hours postoperative and this gradually reduced over time. The intensity of these parameters was higher in males than the females in both groups.

Conclusion: The wound closure technique elicits some differences in the severity of postoperative pain and swelling experienced by patients following mandibular third molar disimpaction. The intensity was observed to be more severe and higher as the age increases, and in males than the females irrespective of the wound closure techniques used.