Is telephone follow-up really effective in early diagnosis of inflammatory complications after tooth extraction?

Abstract

BackgroundTo establish whether telephone follow-up is really able to intercept post-extraction complications and to evaluate the degree of patient satisfaction with this kind of post-surgical monitoring.Material and MethodsSix hundred and thirty-eight patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to a test or control group. Test group patients were monitored by telephone follow-up 24 and 72 hours after surgery to investigate the presence of local symptoms that are frequently associated with surgical wound infection and inflammation. Both test and control group patients were examined 7 days at suture removal. Patients with systemic diseases, those in which intra-operative accidents occurred during surgery and those for whom extraction suture was not required, were excluded.ResultsAt least one complication among alveolar osteitis, alveolar inflammation, alveolar infection and dehiscence involved 15.70% of the patients in the test group and 30.70% of the patients in the control group and telephone follow-up proved to be useful in early identification of anomalies in the post-extraction wound healing process. Comparable results were recorded in all extraction subgroups divided according to the type (surgical and non-surgical) and the number (single and multiple) of extractions performed in the same session. Telephone follow-up showed an 8.60 ± 1.17 (0 to 10 score scale) average acceptance. All cases of alveolar osteitis and infection occurred in patients who underwent antibiotic prophylaxis.ConclusionsTelephone follow-up seems to allow early detection of any possible wound healing complications, it is widely accepted by patients and it could therefore be considered a valid method for wound healing monitoring after tooth extractions, due to its effectiveness, feasibility and low costs. Key words:Oral surgery, complications, telephone follow-up.

A three-year audit of dental services at primary health care facilities in Gauteng, South Africa: 2017 to 2019

“…Studies have shown that by staying in contact with the patient telephonically and updating them regularly, patients are more likely to return for their appointment. [ 16 ] Clinical managers should suggest that dental nurses contact the waiting list patients regularly to ensure that they will attend their appointments and hence reduce the waiting time for patients.…”

How to Manage Impacted Third Molars: Germectomy or Delayed Removal? A Systematic Literature Review

“…On the other hand, a longer surgical procedure implies a higher dose of anesthesia and is more often associated with delayed onset infections on mandibular third molar sites. However, to avoid these complications, methods of drug premedication and telephone monitoring of patients have recently been proposed [39,40].…”

Antibiotic Prophylaxis on Third Molar Extraction: Systematic Review of Recent Data

“…Often the lesions can originate from a previous inflammatory state of the soft tissues, such as gingivitis and periodontitis [30,57,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80]. Not all the methods to carry out diagnosis and epidemiological data collection are always efficient and it is not always possible, if there is no correct follow up, to carry out appropriate measurements of post-operative conditions [81]. It is interesting how different protocols for the same drug emerge from the works taken into consideration.…”