Oral cavity Surgery Flashcards
What characteristics of the oral cavity promote or deter its healing?
- Review
How can anesthesia be done for most oral surgery?
- By working around the endotracheal tube
- If that’s not the case, intubation can be performed via tracheostomy
What medications can be given to reduce pharyngeal swelling (which can lead to dyspnea and suffocation postop)
- Corticosteroids to prevent or treat swelling
How can you minimize aspiration during oral surgery and recovery (5 reasons)?
- Pack off pharynx during surgery (Count sponges)
- Aspirate blood out of pharynx before recovery
- Head down during recovery
- Extubate late so a good swallowing reflex
- Extubate with cuff slightly inflated
Why do you need to be careful with electrocautery when doing oral surgery?
- Oxygen and electrocautery = explosion
Preop preparation for oral surgery (4 main things)
- Cross match prior to major oral surgery as the mouth is vascular!
- Antibiotics (prophylactic indicated; continue postop only if needed therapeutically)
- Clip and scrub (if surgery in the mouth, no clipping needed; rinse mouth with dilute antiseptic solution)
- Sponges (count) in oropharynx to prevent aspiration
What type of suture for oral surgery?
- Absorbable suture
Where should knots be for oral surgery?
- Either in the oral or nasal cavity where they won’t block healing of the tissues in-between
How many layers to close for oral surgery?
- Multiple layers
Other principles of oral surgery
- GENTLE tissue handling
- Avoid closing under tension and avoid electrocautery (both delay healing)
- Avoid or prepare for major vessels
What is the #1 cause of dehiscence after oral surgery?
- Tension
What is the primary goal of closing oral defects, and how is this accomplished?
- Goal is to do so without tnesion
- Most often accomplished with flaps of mucosa (labial, buccal, pharyngeal), full-thickness palatal flaps, and releasing incisions
How do you deal with hemorrhage from the oral cavity?
- Know where the major blood vessels to the mouth are located. Any of them can be ligated as there is plenty of collateral circulation
Describe the route of the major blood supplies to the palate, mandible, and maxilla
- Review in Fossum
What is the common artery from which the blood supply to the palate, mandible, and maxilla arises?
- Carotid artery
What can you use if an artery has retracted into bone?
- Bone wax packed into the opening; this tamponades the vessel
Can you ligate the carotid artery in dogs or cats? If so, can you do unilateral or bilateral?
- In dogs you can do bilateral ligation
- Cat will die from even unilateral carotid artery ligation as cats lack the collateral circulation to the brain
Feeding after oral surgery - what needs to be communicated to the client beforehand?
- Be clear that postop care includes not allowing hte patient to chew on anything hard (food, toys, sticks, etc.) for a period of time
- Warn them in advance so they can make the house/yard safe before the pet returns home
After oral surgery, what is the preferred consistency of food?
- Review the old notes - I forgot already ;p
After oral surgery, how soon can feeding usually be started?
- Review the old notes
- I forgot already ;)
What can you place if oral feeding can’t be started due to a fragile repair that needs to be protected?
- Esophagostomy tube
When is dehiscence most common post-op?
- 3-5 days post-op
When would you repair an oral dehiscence?
- Delay repair until tissue is healthy again, which may take several weeks
Primary cleft palate - what structures are involved?
- Lip and premaxilla
Secondary cleft palate - what structures are involved?
- Hard palate and soft palate
When to repair cleft palate?
8 weeks of age
What are five reasons we wait to repair a cleft palate until 8 weeks of age?
- Gives time to improve body condition
- Better metabolism of anesthetic drugs
- Larger area to work
- Less fragile tissue
- Less risk of malocclusion
What are four things that should be communicated to a client pre-op for cleft palate?
- Preop management can be intensive and include tube feeding every 2 hours with risk of acute aspiration
- Surgery is performed when the dog is 8 weeks old or more
- Multiple surgeries may be required! Often a portion of the cleft will heal after the first surgery but a part will dehisce and require another procedure
- Recommend neutering (a different surgery) as well because the cleft palates can be hereditary
Can you tell the difference between oral neoplasia based on appearance?
- You CANNOT
What are the most common benign oral tumors?
- Epulides (acanthomatous ameloblastoma)
What tissue gives rise to the epulides?
- Odontogenic epithelium
What is the most common epulis, and what is unique about it that may be hard to distinguish from a malignant neoplasia?
- Acanthomatous epulis is most common; it invades bone
What are other types of epulides?
- Fibromatous epulis
- Ossifying epulis
Malignant oral tumors (that all invade bone)
- Malignant melanoma
- Squamous cell carcinoma
- Fibrosarcoma
- Osteosarcoma
- Chondrosarcoma