Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 26, No. 2, 2020 https://cibg.org.au/ P-ISSN: 2204-1990; E-ISSN: 1323-6903 DOI: 10.47750/cibg.2020.26.02.036 Copyright © The Author(s) 2020 . Published by Society of Business and management. This is an Open Access Article distributed under the CC BY license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Prevalence of pericoronitis in impacted mandibular third molar: A Retrospective analysis of 86,000 patient records over nine months FATHIMA BAREERA REZVI 1 , ARTHI BALASUBRAMANIAM 2 *, MANJARI CHAUDHARY 3 1 Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai, India 2 Senior lecturer, Department of Public Health Dentistry, SaveethaDental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai, India 3 Senior lecturer, Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai, India *Corresponding Author Email ID: 151501061.sdc@saveetha.com 1 , arthib.sdc@saveetha.com, manjaric.sdc@saveetha.com Abstract: Third molar impaction has become an important clinical issue.The impacted teeth may have many pathologies such as pericoronitis, periodontitis, root resorption, space infection and coronal and root caries. The study was aimed to find the prevalence of pericoronitis in impacted mandibular third molars. This retrospective study was conducted using records of patients visited private dental college. A total of 102 case records with information on impacted mandibular third molar and pericoronitis were retrieved. Data collected from their records were entered and subjected to statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square association was done to find the prevalence and association between impacted mandibular third molars and pericoronitis. Out of 102 subjects, 87.3% of patients with impacted mandibular third molars had pericoronitis and it was more in males (47.1%) when compared to females (40.2%). It was more prevalent in the age group of 21-30 (57.8%) and in the left mandibular third molar, 38 (51.0%) when compared to the right, 48 (36.3%). There was no significant association of pericoronitis with age, gender, tooth number (p>0.05).Within the limits of the study majority of patients with impacted mandibular third molars had pericoronitis and it was more prevalent in males and in the age group of 17-26 years. Prevalence of pericoronitis was high in the impacted left mandibular third molar compared to the impacted right mandibular third molar. Keywords: mandibular third molar; impaction; pericoronitis; prevalence innovative technique INTRODUCTION Teeth tend to be impacted when they experience failure to erupt or develop in their functional location. Mandibular third molars are the most frequently impacted teeth (Sheppard, 1997). The tooth fails to erupt completely or partially into its proper position in the dental arch. This tooth will not assume a normal arch relationship with the other teeth of the arch and the tissues. Theories have been proposed for the cause of impaction. One of them being the Phylogenetic theory which states that the human jaw has become smaller due to evolution, causing a lack of space for the third molar to erupt (Malik, 2016). The other theory talks about the insufficient development of the retromolar space (Bishara and Andreasen, 1983) (Grover and Lorton, 1985) in which the mandibular ramus growth is related to resorption in its anterior region and deposition in its posterior region, but during an imbalance, the mandibular third molars do not get adequate space for eruption (Björk, 1969). Impaction of mandibular third molar has become an important clinical problem, as the impacted teeth are predisposed to periodontal problems such as pericoronitis, periodontitis, root resorption leading to pain and discomfort (Odusanya and Abayomi, 1991). Pericoronitis is defined as an inflammation of the oral soft tissues which surrounds the crown of an erupted or partially erupted tooth. The word, pericoronitis is often used in relation to inflammation of the operculum associated with the mandibular third molars and it is rarely diagnosed elsewhere (Kay, 1966) (Bean and King, 1971) (Piironen and Ylipaavalniemi, 1981). Pericoronitis is often associated with impaction of the affected teeth and it is frequently associated with impacted third molars that arise due to tooth tissue discrepancy (Nitzan et al., 1985). Difficulty in tooth brushing is experienced in relation to third molars because of their position thereby increasing the possibility of food impaction under the operculum, causing pain, discomfort and leading to infection. Pericoronitis has been reported to be one of the reasons for extraction of impacted third molars (Chestnutt, Binnie and Taylor, 2000) (Costa et al., 2013) (Mohan et al., 2017). Acute serous, acute suppurative, chronic are some forms of pericoronitis. Pain is predominant in the acute stage whereas in the chronic form very few symptoms are displayed, but exudate is present in both forms. The infection is multibacterial, caused by beta-