Acute cardiovascular complications in patients with diabetes and hypertension: management consideration for minor oral surgery

Medical emergencies in a dental school clinic - A 12-year review and lessons learned

PURPOSE

The aims of this study were to estimate the type and frequency of different medical emergencies that occurred over the study period (twelve years) and discuss the lessons learned and the modifications made in the curriculum to better equip dental students and faculty in their management.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A retrospective study was conducted to evaluate all medical emergencies that needed activation of the response team at our school from 2008 to 2020.

RESULTS

The emergency response system was activated 250 times during the 12-year period. There were 132 medical emergencies in the pre-doctoral clinic and 105 events in the post-doctoral clinic (p 0.0680). Most of the emergencies occurred in patients between 45 and 64 years of age. Syncope occurs most often followed by adverse cardiovascular, respiratory, anxiety, and hypoglycemic events.

CONCLUSIONS

Medical emergencies occurring in a dental school provide a unique opportunity for students to gain experience in their management. The key lies in preparing the students and faculty to prevent them from occurring, but should these occur, then they should be able to promptly recognize symptoms and institute prompt intervention.

Society of Defence Anaesthesiologists review and recommendations for the provision of anaesthesia for elective dental procedures in various echelons of dental care

Oral diseases are a burden for developing countries such as India where owing to socioeconomic conditions cost is a factor in selecting the type of treatment. Dental care in India is provided at various levels of care including standalone clinics run by individual dental surgeons, multi-speciality dental centres providing specialist care under one roof including paediatric, prosthodontics, and so on and dental centres affiliated with hospitals having facilities for provision of operation theatre and anaesthesia services. Most dental procedures are performed as day-care procedures requiring local anaesthetics, oral, or moderate intravenous sedation and anxiolytics while maxillofacial procedures are carried out in a controlled operation theatre setting. Dental procedures are fraught with risks due to shared oral surgical space and airway leading to reduced field of visibility to dentists especially with the usage of supplementary oxygenation devices, mouth props, and so on. Various dental societies have proposed minimum standards of care for provision of anaesthesia to various dental procedures; however, there are no extant guidelines in our country. The authors propose these guidelines for provision of minimal sedation (anxiolysis) and moderate sedation/analgesia for various day care dental procedures at various levels of care, keeping the aim that no patient’s life is endangered during provision of anaesthesia services at all dental locations.

A preliminary study on the assessment of pain using figures among patients administered with dental local anesthesia for mandibular third molar extraction

The aim of this study was to clarify or determine any possible association between pain reports with a visual analogue scale (VAS) and a figures based scale. This research was a preliminary study aimed at developing a new pain scale without any verbal description. Healthy Japanese patients aged 20 to 39 years who received anesthetic injections for mandibular third molar extraction at our department were enrolled. Regarding pain from dental local anesthetic injections, we recorded figures selected by participants (among options of a circle, triangle, square, bar, and cross), and VAS scores. Overall, 29 men and 31 women participated in the study. Pain caused by local dental anesthesia tended to remind both men and women of the triangle among the suggested figures. Furthermore, patients who chose a cross also reported higher VAS scores than those who chose other figures. Acute pain caused by local dental anesthesia was associated with triangles, and patients who selected a cross were associated with higher VAS scores. The results of this study provide clinicians with important information for dental practice, and could prove useful in developing new pain scales.

The Prevalence of Diabetes, Prediabetes and Associated Risk Factors in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

OBJECTIVE

Little information is available on the prevalence and associated risk factors of diabetes and prediabetes in the community located in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang Province, southeast China. This study aims to investigate the prevalence of adult diabetes and prediabetes and their associated risk factors among a community population in Hangzhou.

METHODS

A multistage sampling method was used in this study. Ten communities located in Shangcheng district of Hangzhou city were selected, and 3096 permanent residents (resident for ≥6 months) aged 18 years and above were enrolled into this study. Finally, a total of 2986 participants were included. A questionnaire interview and physical examination were conducted for all participants by trained investigators in a local medical center. Anthropometric measurements covered height, weight, waist circumference (WC) and blood pressure, while the blood tests included fasting blood glucose, an oral glucose tolerance test and fasting lipid profiles. The American Diabetes Association diabetes diagnosis criteria were used to discriminate among normal blood glucose, diabetes and prediabetes. The Rao-Scott adjusted χ ² test and complex sampling design-based unconditional multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to evaluate factors associated with diabetes and prediabetes. Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated in Stata version 15. P-values <0.05 indicate statistical significance.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of diabetes was 13.97%, of which 81.54% had prediagnosed diabetes and 18.46% were newly diagnosed with diabetes in the present study. The prevalence of prediabetes was 18.89%. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that age, education, once smoking, family history of diabetes, obesity, central obesity and hypertension were factors associated with diabetes, while age, smoking, drinking, central obesity and hypertension were significant factors related to prediabetes.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes in adults in Hangzhou city remains high. Interventions aiming to modify risk factors such as drinking, obesity, central obesity and hypertension are urgently required.