Relationship Between Surgical Difficulty of Third Molar Extraction Under Local Anesthesia and the Postoperative Evolution of Clinical and Blood Parameters.

To determine whether the Pederson scale is a good predictor of the surgical difficulty of third molar extraction and establish whether such surgical difficulty is directly related to the postoperative course as assessed from clinical (pain, inflammation, and trismus) and blood (C-reactive protein, interleukin-6 [IL-6], and fibrinogen) parameters.A prospective observational study was conducted of 2 groups of patients who underwent simple or surgical third molar extraction under local anesthesia. Clinical and blood parameters and possible complications were recorded for 1 week after extraction.A total of 118 patients were studied. Surgical difficulty as predicted by the Pederson scale showed …