Postoperative dental morbidity in children following dental treatment under general anesthesia.

BACKGROUND: General anesthesia has been widely used in pediatric dentistry in recent years. However, there remain concerns about potential postoperative dental morbidity. The goal of this study was to identify the frequency of postoperative dental morbidity and factors associated with such morbidity in children. METHODS: From March 2012 to February 2013, physically and mentally healthy children receiving dental treatment under general anesthesia at the Department of Pediatric Dentistry of the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan were recruited. This was a prospective and observational study with different time evaluations based on structured questionnaires and interviews. Information on the patient demographics, anesthesia and dental treatment performed, and postoperative dental morbidity was collected and analyzed. Correlations between the study variables and postoperative morbidity were analyzed based on the Pearson's chi-square test. Correlations between the study variables and the scale of postoperative dental pain were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: Fifty-six pediatric patients participated in this study, with an average age of 3.34 ± 1.66 years (ranging from 1 to 8 years). Eighty-two percent of study participants reported postoperative dental pain, and 23% experienced postoperative dental bleeding. Both dental pain and bleeding subsided 3 days after the surgery. Dental pain was significantly associated with the total number of teeth treated, while dental bleeding, with the presence of teeth extracted. Patients' gender, age, preoperative dental pain, ASA classification, anesthesia time, and duration of the operation were not associated with postoperative dental morbidity. CONCLUSION: Dental pain was a more common postoperative dental morbidity than bleeding. The periods when parents reported more pain in their children were the day of the operation (immediately after the procedure) followed by 1 day and 3 days after the treatment.

Conservative treatment of dentigerous cyst associated with primary teeth.

Dentigerous cyst is the most common odontogenic cyst. It is characterized by a unilocular radiolucent lesion that encloses permanent tooth buds or, under certain circumstances, displaced tooth buds. Buccal bony expansion is the most common clinical feature. Several treatment modalities have been mentioned in the literature for management of dentigerous cysts. The purpose of this article was to report an extensive right mandibular dentigerous cyst on a 10-year-old boy. Marsupialization was chosen to preserve the permanent tooth bud and a denturelike obturator was then provided for space maintenance and masticatory function. Long-term follow-up revealed good healing of the bony lesion with converted tooth eruption.