ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Dent. Med.
Sec. Periodontics
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdmed.2025.1668844
This article is part of the Research TopicDiagnostic and Treatment Strategies for Periodontal DiseaseView all 7 articles
Incidence and Risk Factors of Postoperative Complications Following Periodontal Flap Surgery: A Retrospective Study
Provisionally accepted
- Taicang Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Suzhou, China
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Background: Periodontal flap surgery is a common procedure for treating advanced periodontal disease, but postoperative complications such as pain, infection, and delayed healing are frequent. This study aims to investigate the incidence of postoperative complications and identify key risk factors, contributing to more personalized surgical management. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 121 patients who underwent periodontal flap surgery. Patient demographics, clinical data (e.g., age, probing depth, clinical attachment loss), and surgical variables (e.g., incision type, surgery duration) were collected. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify significant predictors of postoperative complications. The complications analyzed included dentin hypersensitivity, excessive pain, infection, and gingival bleeding. 2 Results: Postoperative complications occurred in 44.63% of patients. Age was a significant predictor, with each additional year increasing the risk of complications by 12% (p < 0.001). Clinical attachment loss was strongly associated with complications (p = 0.009). Semilunar incisions, typically used in localized mild cases, were associated with a lower incidence of complications compared to trapezoidal incisions (p < 0.001). Smoking also significantly increased the risk of complications in both the univariate and multivariate analyses (p < 0.05). In the univariate analysis, both preoperative antibiotics and preoperative analgesics were associated with a reduced risk of complications (P < 0.05), but these effects were not significant in the multivariate analysis (P > 0.05). Conclusion: This study highlights age, clinical attachment loss, smoking, and surgical incision type as significant predictors of postoperative complications following periodontal flap surgery. The findings underscore the need for personalized surgical approaches, particularly in older patients and those with severe periodontal disease.
Keywords: Periodontal flap surgery, complication, clinical attachment loss, Risk factors, Logistic regression
Received: 18 Jul 2025; Accepted: 28 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gu, Liu, Xu and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yinjie Shen, Taicang Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Suzhou, China
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