• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.309-313
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• 2010

The management of teeth in the line of a mandibular fracture is controversial despite the general agreement that most of these teeth can be preserved. Teeth should be retained if bony attachments are adequate for survival, the tooth is sound and important in maintaining fixation of the fractured segment of bone. Teeth should be removed if they are loose and interfere with the reduction of fragments, are devitalized and potentially a source of wound infection, are damaged beyond their usefulness or may become devital and interfere with healing by becoming infected. However, tooth removal will increase the level of trauma, extend the severity of the wound and require expensive prosthetic treatment. Therefore, it is very important to conserve infected teeth in the line of a mandibular fracture through early primary endodontic treatment (pulp extirpation, canal enlargement and canal opening drainage) and splinting. The basic principles underlying the treatment of pulpless teeth are those underlying general surgery. Therefore, debridement of the infected wound (pulp extirpation and canal enlargement), drainage (canal opening) and gentle treatment of the tissues (occlusal reduction and teeth splinting) are the principles of surgery. This is a representative case report of conservative care by the early endodontic drainage of infected teeth in the line of a mandibular fracture.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.168-173
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• 2006

The side effects of head and neck radiation therapy include mucositis, xerostomia, loss of taste, radiation caries, oral infection, osteoradionecrosis and trismus. When a patient is arranged to begin head & neck radiotherapy, oral pathologic lesions are examined and managed for the prevention of oral complications. The advanced odontogenic infection should be especially controlled before the radiotherapy and the patient must be instructed for proper oral prophylaxis. Generally the more conservative treatments, such as, scaling, restoration, endodontic treatment, are the care of choice and dental extraction is performed in advanced periapical and periodontal pathologic conditions. If the dental extraction should be done, the radiotherapy consequently will be delayed until there is epithelium covering the extraction socket, leaving no exposed bone. The cancer patient with severe emotional stress pray for the early radiation therapy, in spite of possibility of the recurrent odontogenic infectious lesions. So, the authors attempted to do the early radiation therapy by the conservative endodontic drainage and surgical incision & drainage without extraction of the infected teeth, and resulted in relatively good prognosis without the severe side effects of head and neck radiotherapy.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.471-477
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• 2001

Failure to use effective methods of reduction, fixation, and immobilization may lead to nonunion with osteomyelitis, owing to the compound nature of most fractures of the mandible. Nonunion results in fibrous pseudoarthrosis at the fracture site with instability that, once formed, does not improve spontaneously. Once the nonunion with osteomyelitis secondary to fractures has become established, intermaxillary fixation and drainage of infected tissue should be instituted as early as possible, because the fixation & drainage enhances the patient comfort and hinders ingress of microorganisms & debris by movement of bone fragments. The authors treated three cases of nonunion with osteomyelitis by intermaxillary fixation, incision & persistent drainage on the previous fistula site and endodontic drainage of infected teeth in the fracture site of mandible. The localization & sequestration of the infected bone around the fracture was better performed persistently by natural homeostatic mechanism in $8{\sim}10$ weeks and the bony union was then attained without bone grafting.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.57-61
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• 2010

In the presence of acute pericoronitis of mandilbular third molar, antibiotic therapy and early incision and drainage are the method of choice, followed by definitive surgical extraction of the tooth as soon as it becomes subacute. If excision of the overlying tissues is decided on, it should be done adequately. All overlying tissues must be throughly excised, and the crown portion of the unerupted tooth should be completely exposed. After excision has been completed, the wound should be managed with a surgical dressing. This should be allowed to remain approximately 7 days. And then, surgical extraction of the impacted mandibular third molar can be done usually. In this operation, there are many complications, such as, postoperative bleeding, infection, trismus, dysphasia and paresthesia. The surgeon are discredited and medicolegal problem may be occurred in the presence of many distressed complications. Therefore, the relatively nonsurgical treatment is the method of choice. So, authors selected the conservative treatment methods of incision and drainage, primary endodontic drainage, operculectomy without surgical extraction of the mandibular third molars. The results were more favorable without the postoperative complication in Wonju old offender prison.