Introduction: Third molar surgery (TMS) became a routine, safe office procedure with generally predictable outcomes and relative low cost. It affects quality of life (QOL) of patients by causing considerable pain, swelling and trismus; by changing what people eat, their speech in the first few days after surgery. The purpose of the present study was to improve QOL of patient after lower TMS by injecting single dose 8 mg submucosal dexamethasone.
Materials and methods: Forty healthy adult subjects of either gender underwent surgical removal of the lower impacted third molar under local anaesthesia and after being randomly assigned to receive either 8 mg dexamethasone submucosal injection or normal saline injection in proximity to surgical site.
Statistical analysis used: Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test (Z), t student and unpaired t test, and Fisher extract test were used for calculation of data.
Results: Facial swelling, trismus showed significant reduction immediate postoperative day in dexamethasone groups. Patient perception postoperative pain on VAS score was not significant. PoSSe statistics, only three out of seven subscales showed a statistically significant difference between groups viz., Eating subscale, Appearance subscale, Sickness subscale but over all improvement in QOL was observed.
Conclusions: Submucosal dexamethasone effectively reduces postoperative sequelae and improves postoperative QOL after TMS.
Keywords: Corticosteroid in oral surgery; Post operative sequelae; Quality of life; Submucosal Injection of dexamethasone; Third Molar; Third Molar Surgery.