Reply to: “Simultaneous removal of third molars and completion of a sagittal split osteotomy: effects of age and presence of third molars”

Abstract

In consideration of the Letter to the Editor “Simultaneous removal of third molars and completion of a sagittal split osteotomy: effects of age and presence of third molars—a commentary,” we would like to try to clarify the questions presented. Related to the core of the first and second questions, the answer is as follows: When analyzed at the patient level, the association between the presence of the third molar and bad splits gives a P value of .07. Although not strictly <.05, it is not good practice to use strict cutoffs to judge statistical significance. So this result is suggestive of an association between the variables. It would be preferable to interpret this as “slight evidence of a difference” rather than “no statistical difference.” With this, we stated: “As shown above, there was no strong relation between presence of third molar and adverse fracture when the occurrence per patient was considered.” This same logic can be used to answer the second question. We prefer to state that “when evaluating the occurrence of adverse fracture correlated to the presence of third molar with the number of osteotomies there was a significant association between the bad splits with the presence of the third molar in the site of the osteotomy despite a P > .05 (P = .0513). We just have inserted the statistical program statement that states: “The association between rows (groups) and columns (outcomes) is considered to be not quite statistically significant” because of the presented value of P on the table was >.05. With regard to the third question, the mean age of the entire sample was 23.28 ± 10.78. However, the statistical treatment shows that there is a difference between the occurrence of bad split on these two “grouped” groups: more fractures in older patients—6 cases (age 34 ± 12.961 years)—than in younger patients—209 patients without bad split (age 22.98 ± 10.776 years). This analysis is not considering the presence or absence of third molar. In summary, we can state that simultaneous removal of third molars at the time of a sagittal split osteotomy seems to increase the incidence of bad splits when analyzing by number of osteotomies. This may be explained by the low number of bad splits, there being double the number of bad splits with the third molars when analyzed by surgical site, and thus the analysis was more powerful. Simultaneous removal of third molars and completion of a sagittal split osteotomy: effects of age and presence of third molars—a commentaryOral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral RadiologyVol. 121Issue 6PreviewThis was a new research hypothesis, and the authors tried to address the same with a retrospective cohort study design.1 We congratulate the authors on their approach and effort to address the same. We could not draw any conclusions from the article and request the authors to provide clarifications in the some areas as described below. Full-Text PDF