COMPARISON OF DIODE LASER VERSUS CONVENTIONAL SCALPEL INCISION IN REMOVAL OF IMPACTED LOWER THIRD MOLAR IN DIABETIC PATIENTS (A SPLIT MOUTH RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED CLINICAL TRIAL)

BACKGROUND: One of the most common minor surgeries in dental practices is the surgical removal of impacted third molars; a procedure that requires optimum physical and radiological assessment to decrease the complications that may arise during the procedure. Certain surgical modalities have been proposed to decrease the invasiveness of the procedure, one is the diode laser therapeutic use. OBJECTIVES: To clinically compare the wound healing rate and the clinical outcome that occurs following the surgical removal of impacted third molar teeth by the conventional gold standard scalpel versus the diode laser incision in diabetic patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was a split-mouth randomized clinical trial. Twenty-three diabetic patients who needed bilateral surgical removal of impacted mandibular third molar were recruited and randomized. One side (study group) had the incision undergone by the diode laser, while the contralateral side (control group) had the conventional scalpel incision to expose the tooth. Pain was recorded by Visual analogue scale (VAS) after one and seven days, edema was measured by three facial lines after one and seven days, trismus was recorded by measuring the inter-incisal opening after seven days and one month and the wound healing was recorded by the Early wound healing scale (EHS) after seven days and one month postoperative. RESULTS: The clinical outcome showed statistically significant differences in pain, edema, and trismus in the study group, while the control group showed statistically significant differences in wound healing in the early postoperative period, however, a non-significant difference was noted between both groups after one-month follow-up. CONCLUSION: Diode laser incision was an efficient procedure in decreasing the post-operative pain, trismus and edema following removal of impacted third molars. The only disadvantage was delayed wound healing in the first week