Comparison of Wound Healing Using Envelope and Triangular Flap for Impacted Mandibular Third Molar Surgery

Abstract

Objective: To compare the wound healing with triangular flap versus envelope flap techniques among patients undergoing surgical removal of the impacted mandibular third molar (IMTM). Study Design: An open label randomized controlled trial. Place and Duration of the Study: The Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Bakhtawar Amin Medical and Dental College, Multan from January 2021 to June 2021. Material and Methods: A total of 70 patients (35 in each group) of both genders aged 20 to 50 years requiring surgical removal of IMTM were included. Patients were asked to follow up on third and seventh day while observations regarding wound healing and pain were noted on 7th day among all cases completing the final follow up. Chi square was applied to compare data between both study groups taking p-value below 0.05 as significant. Results: In a total of 70 patients, there were 42 (60.0%) female and 28 (40.0%) female. Majority of the patients, 36 (51.4%) were above 30 years of age while mean age was noted to be 32.4+9.1 years. Sixty two patients completed the follow up so they were included in the final analysis for the assessment of wound healing and pain. Overall, wound healing was observed to be in 55/62 (88.7%) patients while wound healing was found to be 30/32 (93.8%) patients in envelope flap group in comparison to 25/30 (83.3%) in triangular flap group (p=0.1953). Overall, there was no statistically significant difference in between both study group with regards to evaluation of pain (p=0.3271) Conclusion: Both envelop flap and triangular flap techniques resulted in similar outcomes regarding wound healing among patients undergoing surgical removal of IMTM. Both flap techniques resulted in relatively similar degrees of post-surgery pain. Keywords: Third molar, pain, wound healing.