Third Molar Extraction May Improve Long-Term Taste Function

be used to complement a clinical assessment of your patient to provide more information to support suggesting new oral hygiene habits, products or treatments.

The most comprehensive chairside saliva screening measures the presence of biomarkers in three key areas of tooth health, gum health, and oral cleanliness, providing results for levels of cariogenic, acidity, buffer capacity, blood, leukocyte, protein and ammonia. These results can indicate a higher or lower risk for developing caries and gum disease, which can support the discussion with your patients on what their oral health looks like today and where you are encouraging them to take it.

Can A Saliva Screening be Beneficial for My Practice?

Dr Brian Novy, noted saliva lecturer, CAMBRA president and chief dental officer for the state of Massachusetts, added chairside salvia screening to his practice a few years ago and finds it beneficial for both the team and patient.

Team Benefits

• Quick, easy procedure doesn’t interrupt current hygienist’s routine and supports clinical case presentation. • Customizable report fields to create a unique, patientcentered report card that clearly explains the issue and staff recommendations. • SillHa Results Advisor provides insight to potential causes and recommendations that support the conversation with patients. • Tracks progress over time so that everyone can see what is working and how health is improving.

Patient Benefits

• Objective, visual evidence to help understand what the clinician is telling them about disease risk. • A report card just for them that clearly explains the issue and the recommendations • Develops trust in their provider that what they are recommending has some basis • Tracking patient result over time motivates them to continue behavioral changes to see improved outcomes.

Another office is using salvia analysis for a different audience and finds similar benefits. Dr Boyd Simkins, a pediatric dentist in Utah, states that saliva analysis has changed the conversation with parents of his pediatric patients. He feels he is no longer saying the same things over and over to glazed-eyed parents about brushing and flossing, and no more sugar. Now, he discusses outcome and progress as the numbers are changing. Discussions are more meaningful with a salvia screening analysis to show how their child is responding to treatment. Dr Simkins believes it is a valuable addition to his practice.

A salvia screening tool can change and add impact to your preventive care routines. Empowering your staff with this simple method to have a deeper and more meaningful conversations to engage patients can be the boost a practice needs to make a great comeback after a year of uncertainties and smarter patients.

Chelsea Anderson, RDH Today’s FDA August 2021

RESEARCH

THIRD MOLAR EXTRACTION MAY IMPROVE LONG-TERM TASTE FUNCTION

Patients who had their third molars extracted had improved tasting abilities decades after having the surgery, according to a new Penn Medicine study published in the journal Chemical Senses. The findings challenge the notion that removal of the third molars only has the potential for negative effects on taste and represent one of the first studies to analyze the long term effects of extraction on taste. “This new study shows us that taste function can actually slightly improve between the time patients have surgery and up to 20 years later,” said senior author Richard L. Doty, PhD, director of the Smell and Taste Center at the University of Pennsylvania Dr. Doty and co-author Dane Kim, a third-year student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, evaluated data from 1,255 patients who had undergone a chemosensory evaluation at Penn’s Smell and Taste Center over the course of 20 years. Among that group, 891 patients had received third molar extractions and 364 had not.

The “whole-mouth identification” test incorporated five different concentrations of sucrose, sodium chloride, citric acid and caffeine. Each solution was sipped, swished in the mouth and then spit out. Subjects then indicated whether the solution tasted sweet, salty, sour or bitter.

The extraction group outperformed the control group for each of the four tastes, and in all cases, women outperformed men. The study suggests, for the first time, that people who have received extractions in the distant past experience, on average, an enhancement (typically a 3% to 10% improvement) in their ability to taste.

Two possibilities could explain the enhancement, according to the authors. First, extraction damage to the nerves that innervate the taste buds on the front of the mouth can release inhibition on nerves that supply the taste buds at the rear of the mouth, increasing whole-mouth sensitivity. Second, hypersensitivity after peripheral nerve injury from a surgery like an extraction has been well documented in other contexts.

Learn more about this study in Chemical Senses (2021); dx.doi. org/ 10.1093/chemse/bjab032.