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Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: a literature review of prospective studies
Int. J. Oral Maxillofac. Surg. 2011; 40: 1003–1006 available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com
Letters to the Editor Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: a literature review of prospective studies
Dear Editor, I have read with great interest the article ‘‘Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: a literature review of prospective studies’’ by LEUNG & CHEUNG1. It offers a great deal of valuable information about this sort of complications. However, there are two objections I would like to make.First, as co-author of some of the cited papers, I did not understand why reference n81202 was excluded, whilst reference n81213 was included. Both articles met the selection criteria, as methodology was the same, the only difference being that the excluded paper dealt with lingual nerve disturbances, and the included one with the inferior alveolar nerve. Anyway, this exclusion probably had little effects on the results. The second concern is methodological in nature: simply pooling the results, without weighing them using the inverse of the variance or other variables related to sample size, does not seem to be the best strategy.Despite these two objections, I congratulate the authors for their exhaustive review and also for their recent papers on such an interesting subject. Yours Eduard Valmaseda-Castello´n* University of Barcelona, Oral Surgery and Implantology, Feixa Llarga s/n, Campus de Bellvitge, Pavello´ Central, 08907 L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain E-mail address: [email protected] 0901-5027/0901003 + 04 $36.00/0
References 1. Leung YY, Cheung LK. Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: an literature review of prospective studies. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg 2011: 40: 1–10. 2. Valmaseda-Castello´n E, BeriniAyte´s L, Gay-Escoda C. Lingual nerve damage after third lower molar surgical extraction. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod 2000: 90: 567–573. 3. Valmaseda-Castello´n E, BeriniAyte´s L, Gay-Escoda C. Inferior alveolar nerve damage after lower third molar surgical extraction: a prospective study of 1117 surgical extractions. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod 2001: 92: 377–383.
doi:10.1016/j.ijom.2011.03.015
Response to comments on IJOMS publication
calculated percentage of LN by buccal approach as the technique of lower wisdom tooth surgery is 2.3% (355/15672). This figure is the same as shown in Table 3 of our paper and has not changed the overall result and conclusion of the study. The study has included prospective studies on neurosensory deficit after lower wisdom tooth surgery. We have considered various methods for statistical analysis of the data during the study design planning stage and finally chose the current method. A larger sample size of a study will be reflected with a more significant effect of the final result on each category of risk factors. Amongst the included studies only seven are randomized controlled trials. Regression or as suggested ‘‘weighing them using the inverse of the variance’’ would not be feasible nor appropriate as they should only be used when the data were more homogenous or the studies were all randomized trials. Funding
Dear Editor, We thank the author very much for their constructive comments to our published paper, titled ‘‘Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: a literature review of prospective studies’’. We are especially grateful that they have pointed out reference 120, which reported on lingual nerve (LN) was excluded, whilst the same study reporting on inferior dental nerve (IDN) on reference 121 was included. We are sorry that we have overlooked that there are actually two different papers from the same study. We would like to take this opportunity to make an adjustment to include reference 120, which reported on the technique of third molar surgery and the risk of LN. The re-
None. Competing interests
None. Ethical approval
Not required. Y.Y. Leung L.K. Cheung* The University of Hong Kong Discipline of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Prince Philip Dental Hospital Sai Ying Pun Hong Kong
# 2011 International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Letters to the Editor Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: a literature review of prospective studies
Dear Editor, I have read with great interest the article ‘‘Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: a literature review of prospective studies’’ by LEUNG & CHEUNG1. It offers a great deal of valuable information about this sort of complications. However, there are two objections I would like to make.First, as co-author of some of the cited papers, I did not understand why reference n81202 was excluded, whilst reference n81213 was included. Both articles met the selection criteria, as methodology was the same, the only difference being that the excluded paper dealt with lingual nerve disturbances, and the included one with the inferior alveolar nerve. Anyway, this exclusion probably had little effects on the results. The second concern is methodological in nature: simply pooling the results, without weighing them using the inverse of the variance or other variables related to sample size, does not seem to be the best strategy.Despite these two objections, I congratulate the authors for their exhaustive review and also for their recent papers on such an interesting subject. Yours Eduard Valmaseda-Castello´n* University of Barcelona, Oral Surgery and Implantology, Feixa Llarga s/n, Campus de Bellvitge, Pavello´ Central, 08907 L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain E-mail address: [email protected] 0901-5027/0901003 + 04 $36.00/0
References 1. Leung YY, Cheung LK. Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: an literature review of prospective studies. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg 2011: 40: 1–10. 2. Valmaseda-Castello´n E, BeriniAyte´s L, Gay-Escoda C. Lingual nerve damage after third lower molar surgical extraction. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod 2000: 90: 567–573. 3. Valmaseda-Castello´n E, BeriniAyte´s L, Gay-Escoda C. Inferior alveolar nerve damage after lower third molar surgical extraction: a prospective study of 1117 surgical extractions. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod 2001: 92: 377–383.
doi:10.1016/j.ijom.2011.03.015
Response to comments on IJOMS publication
calculated percentage of LN by buccal approach as the technique of lower wisdom tooth surgery is 2.3% (355/15672). This figure is the same as shown in Table 3 of our paper and has not changed the overall result and conclusion of the study. The study has included prospective studies on neurosensory deficit after lower wisdom tooth surgery. We have considered various methods for statistical analysis of the data during the study design planning stage and finally chose the current method. A larger sample size of a study will be reflected with a more significant effect of the final result on each category of risk factors. Amongst the included studies only seven are randomized controlled trials. Regression or as suggested ‘‘weighing them using the inverse of the variance’’ would not be feasible nor appropriate as they should only be used when the data were more homogenous or the studies were all randomized trials. Funding
Dear Editor, We thank the author very much for their constructive comments to our published paper, titled ‘‘Risk factors of neurosensory deficits in lower third molar surgery: a literature review of prospective studies’’. We are especially grateful that they have pointed out reference 120, which reported on lingual nerve (LN) was excluded, whilst the same study reporting on inferior dental nerve (IDN) on reference 121 was included. We are sorry that we have overlooked that there are actually two different papers from the same study. We would like to take this opportunity to make an adjustment to include reference 120, which reported on the technique of third molar surgery and the risk of LN. The re-
None. Competing interests
None. Ethical approval
Not required. Y.Y. Leung L.K. Cheung* The University of Hong Kong Discipline of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Prince Philip Dental Hospital Sai Ying Pun Hong Kong
# 2011 International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.