Abstract
Background:Traumatic dental injuries (TDIs) represent 18-30% of all oral pathologies and a considerable number of these are sports related. It is very important to treat sports-related injuries and prevent complications. However, very few studies investigate the most expedient therapeutic strategies for the treatment of dental trauma correlated to sports.Objective:The aim of this work was to focus on the average recovery time for different lesions, to assess adequate times for each athlete, to identify any association with complications and to investigate whether or not the use of mouth-guards interfered with a full recovery to normal health.Methods:This study involved a group of 30 athletes (15 male and 15 female) who had dental injuries of varying severity.For the purposes of data collection, two classifications were taken into account: a classification for hard tissue trauma and another for periodontal lesions. The athletes were subdivided in “type of lesion’ groups”.They were then treated depending on their individual lesions and followed up for 5 years. A statistical analysis was carried out to study the association between recovery time, lesion types and occurrence of complications.Results:The time for recovery was different for each type of lesion and ranged from 3-5 days (only uncomplicated fractures) to 14 days (all hard-periodontal tissue traumas). The total number of recorded pulp complications amounted to 6 cases. Among 30 athletes, 20 had begun and maintained, during the five-year follow-up period, the habit of using mouth-guards when practicing their sport activities.Conclusions:Recovery time and the severity of lesions are statistically associated: the more serious the injury, the more time an athlete needs to recover and return to competitive sports events. Furthermore, recovery time and precautionary measures (mouth-guards) did not influence the onset of complications. The subjects’ habit of wearing a mouth guard continued even after the end of the therapy and follow-up periods.
Highlights
For the sake of simplicity, we divided athletes in groups based on the type of injury and ascribed a reference code: uncomplicated crown fractures (F), complicated crown fractures with pulp involvement (FP), luxation and crown fractures (LF) and only luxation (L)
Two points were investigated: (i) whether the type of lesion was associated with recovery time; (ii) if the time to recover was too short and risked causing complications
The 5 athletes who recovered within 5 days did not have any complications, which were observed in athletes requiring longer recovery time
Summary
There are very few studies in the existing literature that have addressed the question of the most expedient therapeutic strategies to adopt when treating competititve athletes [4, 5], but it is often the case that medical sport teams want the injured athlete to return to competition as soon as possible [6] The purpose of this longitudinal study is to present a clinical protocol therapy applied to a group of 30 athletes between the ages of 8 and 20, who suffered from dento-alveolar traumas affecting the hard tissue and periodontal tissues. Very few studies investigate the most expedient therapeutic strategies for the treatment of dental trauma correlated to sports
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