The role of age in third molar surgery: a retrospective study

Abstract

The aim of our study was to compare our clinical database of removed third molars with the international results, focusing
on the patients’ age. As being one of the most frequently visited dentoalveolar surgical centers with the highest number
of employed dentoalvolar surgeons in Hungary, it is a great opportunity to get valuable informations from our patient
database compared to other foreign surgical centers. Our research covered a ten years period from 2010–2019. Informations
were gathered about gender, age and position of the affected teeth. A total of 23 305 third molars were removed
from patients 5 to 95 years of age in the mentioned period. Our measured datas were compared to other international
study results. Surgical third molar removal was carried out more often in women (61,5%) than in men (38,5%), which
is not corresponding to results gathered from international surgical centers. Removal of the third molar from the lower
jaw was carried out in about two thirds of the total cases (60,7%). The most significant age of the surgical removal was
24 years of age, both in the upper and the lower jaw. No significal differences were found in age neither between upper
and lower jaw nor between the four quadrants in comparison. Heterogenity in gathered data and in social insurance
codification was resulted in a lack of statistical evaluation from the accurate diagnose and the method of tooth removal.