Extraction Complications Flashcards
You can get extraction complications at 3 diff stages. What are these?
- Immediate/intra-operative/perioperative (basically immediately after to a couple of hours post-procedure)
- Immediate post-operative/short term post-operative (a few days after the procedure)
- Long term post-operative
What are some examples of peri-operative complications? (big list! - 16)
- Difficulty of access
- Abnormal resistance
- Fracture of tooth/root
- Fracture of alveolar plate
- Fracture of maxillary tuberosity
- Jaw fracture
- Involvement of the maxillary antrum
- Loss of tooth
- Soft tissue damage
- Damage to nerve/vessels
- Haemorrhage
- Dislocation of TMJ
- Damage to adjacent teeth/restorations
- Extraction of permanent tooth germ
- Broken instruments
- Wrong tooth!!
What things might cause difficulty with your access and vision?
- Trismus
- Limited mouth opening
- Can be muscle spasms, joint problems, burns
- Reduced aperture of mouth
- Congenital/syndromes – microstomia, scarring
- Crowded/malpositioned teeth
- Makes it difficult to access the tooth
- Might not be able to get the tooth without moving others
- Can’t get the forceps in so might need to use the luxators and elevators more
What might cause abnormal resitance when trying to extract a tooth?
- Thick cortical bone
- Shape/form of the roots
- number of roots
- Hypercementosis
- Ankylosis
In what patients are you more likely to have problems with thick cortical bone?
bulkier guys
What shape or form of roots might cause abnormal resistance?
- Divergent roots
- Hooked roots
How might the number of roots cause abnormal resistance when extracting a tooth?
- 3-rooted teeth
- Especially lower 6’s and 7’s that have roots curved together. This may not look like a problem but they can sometimes trap inter-radicular bone between the curve of the 2 roots which makes it very hard to remove (will break a sweat!).
- Roots can sometimes be fused with the bone
- Will need to be surgically removed
- Extra roots – makes it a lot harder to mobilise the tooth
What is hypercementosis?
extra-cementum (can be seen on radiographs)
What is ankylosis?
- Pathological fusion between alveolar bone and cementum
- Is pretty rare
What might become fractured during an extraction?
- tooth
- alveolus/tuberosity
- jaw
The tooth might fracture at the crown or the root. What makes it more likely for a tooth to fracture?
- Carious tooth
- More likely to break due to weakened structure
- Alignment
- Can make it difficult to get the forceps to where they need to be (below the crown)
- You need to get below the bone
- This is why it is so important to take the time to position the forceps correctly
- Size
- Might have a small crown and big sturdy roots
- Roots
- Fused
- Convergent or divergent
- ‘extra’ root(s)
- Morphology
- Hypercementosis
- Ankylosis
NOTE: Referring for a surgical extraction IS NOT admitting defeat.
Where is the alveolar bone most commonly fractured?
At the buccal plate with canines or molars
What do you need to assess if you break the alveolar bone?
Is it still attached to the periosteal?
What do you do if the alveolar bone is still attached to the periosteal after fracture at the molar region?
it still has a blood supply so can put it back in place and hope for it to heal. Would place sutures
What do you do if the bone is not stil attached to the periosteal?
Remove the bone (don’t place dead bone back in as will just cause the patient pain)
Need to remove by dissceting it free with scalpel (so don’t rip more bone out)
Suture the wound
In the canine region, how would you manage an alveolar fracture?
- Try best to keep the bone here
- Stabilise
- Free mucoperiosteum
- Smooth edges
- Don’t be temped to use fingers to feel whether or not it is smooth as it can cut through gloves and cause a sharps injury
What jaw tends to become fractured?
mandible
What is often an underlying reason that a jaw may become fractured during an extraction?
Often something has weakened the jaw such as a large cyst or an atrophic mandible
If extracting a tooth from a thin bit of bone, what might you want to do?
stop short e.g leave roots and jsut remove crown
What actually causes the mandible to fracture during an extraction? How can you prevent this?
The application of force
Should alwyas be supporting the mandible and if cant then get your dental nurse to do it
Explain how you would manage a jaw fracture.
- Inform the patient of what has happened
- Take post-op radiograph if have panoramic machine available
- Refer to maxillofacial unit (phone them)
- If no maxillofacial unit then can send to A&E
- Can also call the dental hospital for advice
- Ensure analgesia
- Stabilise?
- If there is a delay, give antibiotic
- Tell the patient to NOT EAT ON ROUTE TO THE HOSPITAL
- It is likely the surgeons will want to operate the same day so the patient needs to fast
How might the maxillary antrum/sinus become involved in an extraction complication?
- Oral antral fistula/communication
- loss of root into antrum
- fractured tuberosity (back part of the maxillar fracturing off)
What might make a patient more at risk of an oral-antral communication occuring?
- size of tooth
- radiograohic position of the roots in relation to the antrum
- bone at the trifurcation of the roots