Low level laser therapy versus dexamethasone phonophoresis after third molar surgery / Marwa Sayed Ibrahim Ali ; Supervised Mohamed Mahmoud Abdalkhalek Khallaf , Ashraf Hassan Mohammed Soliman , Amira Ali Ahmed Zaied

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Physical Therapy - Department of Physical Therapy for Surgery

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the comparitive effectiveness of low level laser therapy (LLLT) and dexamethasone phonophoresis in patients with edema and trismus following third molar surgeries. Methods: The study was performed on 30 patients aged 25-45 and suffering from swelling and trismus following third molar surgery. They were divided into two equal groups named group A and group B. Group A received low level laser therapy immediately after third molar extraction surgery for (6 min session over the masseter muscle daily for 7 days). Group B received phonophoresis of dexamethasone ampoule(in each session with half of 8 mg vial and 35 g ultrasound gel immediately after third molar extraction (7 minutes session over the masseter muscle area for 7 days).Vertical mouth opening and facial swelling measurements were evaluated on pre-operative, 2nd day and 7th day postoperative. Results: Results showed that there is no significant difference between administration of dexamethasone phonophoresis and LLLT for the reduction of postoperative edema and trismus. Also this study demonstrates that both low level laser therapy and dexamethasone phonophoresis were significantly effective in decreasing trismus following third molar surgery as manifested by the highly increased vertical mouth opening (VMO), but only dexamethasone phonophoresis has a significant effect on reduction of edema as manifested by highly decreased facial measurments (FM) while there was no significant difference on edema at 7th day post operative in laser group

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