Page 179 - Demo
P. 179


                                    17710Summarydays 3 or 4 to check wound healing and wound irrigation could have been an alternative to solve this issue, but then the patient would have had to attend yet another appointment. Chapter 6 describes a study on the coronectomy of mandibular third molars. To obtain more information about the OHRQoL after a coronectomy, which is the removal of the crown of an impacted wisdom tooth localized near to the inferior alveolar nerve, we collected the OHIP-14 data of our patients in the first postoperative week. We found a substantial rise in the mean OHIP-14 score up to the third day, than a gradually lowering to the seventh day. The pain score was highest on the first postoperative day and declined thereafter until the seventh day. We did not find a correlation with the degree of impaction, using the Gregory and Pell classification, and the pain scores. Also, there was no difference between the pain scores of males and females. When comparing the OHIP-14 and pain scores with those of other studies involving the removal of a wisdom tooth, we found higher scores for pain and total OHIP-14 scores in the other studies. An explanation for these findings might be that after the coronectomy is performed, the remaining pulp tissue, which is localized in the roots, prolongs the sensitivity or pain. This is an interesting outcome and could help patients in the preoperative stage to choose one of these procedures. Chapter 7 is an assessment of the effect of periapical surgery on the OHRQoL in the first postoperative week. We concluded that both OHIP-14 and NRS scores changed considerably in the first postoperative day and that the scores decreased rapidly in the first postoperative week. We found no difference between the OHIP-14 scores of women and men, but we did find higher NRS scores in female compared with male patients. We found higher pain scores in younger patients than in older patients. The operation time did not influence the postoperative pain experienced in our patients. The last study of this thesis, described in Chapter 8, investigated the impact of orthognathic surgery on quality of life in patients with different dentofacial deformities. The OHIP-14 scores of 85 patients were preoperatively calculated and compared with the outcomes in the first week and at 4 weeks, 6 months, and at least 1 year after the surgery. Besides the OHIP-scores, we collected mean pain scores, using a visual analog scale (VAS). We found a major decline 
                                
   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183