Oral Health and Dental Management

Abstract

Dental Trauma due To Intubating during General Anaesthesia: Incidence, Risks Factors, and Prevention

Salman Ansari, Vikas Rajpurohit, Vikas Dev

Iatrogenic injury can also occur while intubating or extubating patients during procedures requiring general anesthesia. Endoscopy and general anesthesia involve instrumentation that can injure soft tissues and dental tissues. Perioperative dental injury is the most common complaint among all medico-legal complaints related to anesthesia. Stress should be laid on the knowledge and understanding of risk factors to prevent any dental injuries. Patients who have the highest risk for dental injury are those who have pre-existing poor dentition. A thorough preoperative evaluation of a patient’s mouth should be conducted in consultation with the dentist, before undergoing general anesthesia procedure. If injury does occur, patient can be referred to a dentist in the postoperative phase for restoration of the dental damage.