Background: Conventional mandibular third molar removal produces tissue trauma that induces an inflammatory reaction, leading to postoperative sequelae, the most common ones being trismus which influences the patient's quality of life in the postoperative period. Identifying the factors determining trismus after mandibular third molar extraction helps us to evaluate and correlate the incidence of trismus with morphological and surgical factors that are associated with its incidence in the postoperative period.
Methodology: Patients referred to our institution for surgical removal of their impacted lower third molar between November 2014 and February 2015 were the participants of the study. Type of impaction, indication, and level of difficulty based on Pedersen criteria were obtained. Postoperative pain, swelling, and mouth opening (MO) limitations were evaluated at postoperative day (POD) 0, POD1, POD3, POD5, and POD7 and were analyzed. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Result and conclusion: In this study, out of fifty patients, only nine patients had experienced limited MO during postoperative period when the duration of procedure exceeded 30 min. However, it occurred as cumulative of pericoronitis and tooth sectioning done. The postoperative trismus was more significant in disto-angular impaction (P < 0.05) due to postoperative sequelae, swelling and pain.
Keywords: Pain; third molar; trismus.