GOOD NEUROLOGICAL RESULTS WITH CORONECTOMY IN THE THIRD MANDIBULAR MOLAR SURGERY: CASE SERIES STUDY

Inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) injury (IANI) is a possible postoperative complication occurring after mandibular third molar surgery (1). According to the literature the percentage of temporary injury to the alveolar nerve goes from 0.4% to the 8.4% (2), whereas permanent injury occurs in up to 3% of cases (3,4) Even thought rare, the consequences of this kind of complications should not be underestimated. Injuries to the alveolar inferior nerve cause a considerable discomfort in patients (1) and often result in lawsuits against the surgeon. In order to avoid this kind of complication, clinicians studied surgical alternative options for the treatment of impacted third molars in close proximity to the inferior alveolar nerve. Coronectomy is today one of these alternative (6-8). This surgical technique was first proposed by Ecuyer and Debien in 1984 and consists in the removal of the crown, deliberately leaving in situ the part of the tooth that has a relationship with the IAN: the roots (9). The aims of this study are to describe, after three years of coronectomies, a surgical protocol to improve the clinical success of coronectomy, and evaluate the postoperative complications of 93 coronectomies of the lower third molars