In addition to possible unnecessary costs, another consideration is the potential side effects of having one or more wisdom teeth removed. By changing the structure of the mouth, secondary symptoms can arise. These may include headaches, neck pain or temporomandibular joint (TMJ) problems. A TMJ problem may then, in turn, cause other problems in the head, neck or other areas of the body.
The Wisdom of Extraction Questioned
The tradition of unnecessary health care procedures is appearing again. This time it's dental extraction of wisdom teeth. Well over two million wisdom teeth are extracted each year in the U.S. A federally funded study, by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina researchers to identify wasteful medical procedures, says that's far too many extractions. Many of these procedures are for "preventive" reasons the oral surgeons say. But the study sites that removing teeth because they might cause a problem someday is like saying everyone should have their appendix removed. The study also showed that patients who were most vulnerable were teenagers whose parents had insurance: 9 out of 10 of these patients had their wisdom teeth removed.
Of course there are times when a wisdom tooth needs to be removed: infection, some impacted ones (some impacts are benign) or other significant problems. Although more research is needed to show what happens to wisdom teeth later in life, one of the researchers said that so many wisdom teeth have been removed over the years it's difficult to even find older adults to study this subject.
Another concern of the researchers was cost: $150 million a year could be saved by not removing wisdom teeth that didn't cause problems. According to an article in the New York Times (6/26/91), removing wisdom teeth is the "bread and butter of oral surgeons." The article said that the nations 6,000 oral surgeons extract 2.25 million wisdom teeth annually, and "general dentists probably take out more than that, but no one is keeping track" quoting Dr. Alexia Antczak of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, who was one of the doctors who conducted the study.
