Incidence of lingual nerve damage following surgical extraction of mandibular third molars with lingual flap retraction: A systematic review and meta-analysis

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to examine more recent data to determine the extent of lingual nerve injury (LNI) following the surgical extraction of mandibular third molars (M3M). A systematic search of three databases [PubMed, Web of Science and OVID] was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The inclusion criteria encompassed studies on patients who underwent surgical M3M extraction using the buccal approach without lingual flap retraction (BA-), buccal approach with lingual flap retraction (BA+), and lingual split technique (LS). The outcome measures expressed in LNI count were converted to risk ratios (RR). Twenty-seven studies were included in the systematic review, nine were eligible for meta-analysis. Combined RR for LNI (BA+ versus BA-) was 4.80 [95% Confidence Interval:3.28–7.02; P