Replantation of a Iatrogenically Avulsed Mandibular Premolar Undergoing Orthodontic Therapy: A 5 Year Follow-Up.

The succedaneous permanent teeth develop in close proximity to primary teeth. They can get accidentally luxated or avulsed during the extraction of primary teeth. The purpose of this paper was to describe a case of a 14-year-old boy with an "iatrogenic avulsion" of an immature mandibular second premolar during the extraction of a primary mandibular second molar. The case was managed successfully with replantation technique within 30 minutes of extra oral period and followed up for 5 years. The replanted tooth remained clinically asymptomatic, showed continued root development and eruption and remained vital. This paper had also discussed about the modifications in extraction technique to avoid the iatrogenic avulsion of permanent tooth bud during extraction of primary teeth.

Surgical Staples: A Superior Alternative to Sutures for Skin Closure After Neck Dissection-A Single-Blinded Prospective Randomized Clinical Study.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the efficacy of staples in skin closure after neck dissection in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma. The authors hypothesized that the use of staples would result in better wound closure compared with the use of nonabsorbable monofilament sutures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective single-blinded randomized clinical trial was performed to compare various parameters, including time for wound closure, inflammatory changes, pain, cost efficacy, complications, and esthetic outcome of skin closure with surgical staples versus nonabsorbable monofilament sutures and to determine their statistical relevance using χ2 and Mann-Whitney U tests. RESULT: In a study of 124 patients, the mean skin closure time was 29.2 ± 4 minutes with sutures (n = 61) and 5.3 ± 1.29 minutes with staples (n = 63), which was significant (P = .01). Mean pain scores during removal using the visual analog scale were 5.08 ± 1.29 and 3.15 ± 0.89 with sutures and staples, respectively. Postoperative complications, such as gapping and stitch abscess with purulent discharge, were noted. CONCLUSION: Staples provided better esthetics with fewer complications, faster closure, minimal pain at removal, and faster healing compared with sutures. The slowest closure time in the staples group was 4 times faster than the fastest closure time in the sutures group. However, staples cost 5 times more than sutures.

Does Hamulotomy during Palatoplasty Have Any Effect on Hearing Ability in Nonsyndromic Cleft Palate Patients? A Prospective, Single Blind, Comparative Study.

The primary goal of palatoplasty is to achieve a tension-free palatal closure ensuring no postoperative complications. Many surgeons fracture the pterygoid hamulus to minimize tension during palatoplasty. However, this maneuver gained criticism by some authors on the grounds that it may lead to Eustachian Tube dysfunction. Our study intended to figure out the relationship of hamulus fracture with the postoperative state of middle ear in cleft palate children. Fifty consecutive cleft palate patients with an age range of 10 months to 5 years were recruited. All the patients were assigned to either hamulotomy or nonhamulotomy group preoperatively. The patients were subjected to otoscopic examination and auditory function evaluation by brainstem evoked response audiometry (BERA) preoperatively and 1 month and 6 months postoperatively. Otoscopy revealed that the difference in the improvement of middle ear status in both groups was statistically insignificant. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the BERA outcomes of the fracture and nonfracture populations. Complication rate in both groups was also statistically not significant. It can be concluded that hamulotomy does not have any effect on the hearing ability in cleft palate population, so hamulotomy can be performed for tension-free closure during palatoplasty.