SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF EVALUATION OF CRYOTHERAPY AND HEAT THERAPY AFTER SURGERY FOR IMPACTED THIRD MOLARS

Objective: Address the Population/patients problem; I: intervention; C: control/comparison; O: outcome (PICOS) issue: Is there evidence for indicating the use of cryotherapy and heat therapy after surgical extraction of impacted third molars? Additionally, scientific evidence for the development of therapeutic protocols was found. Design Study: Searches using the Ovid MEDLINE, SCOPUS (Elsevier), PubMed, Cochrane Library, Lilacs, and Livivo databases were performed, from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 2018, complemented by Open Grey platform and manual searches using references from related articles and journals. Studies of the anti-inflammatory benefits of postoperative cryotherapy and heat therapy (pertaining to the extraction of impacted third molars) were included; the searches were performed independently by 2 reviewers. Meta-analysis were analyzed via the Review Manager. Results: From 271 citations, 11 articles were selected for evaluation. Ten addressed the effects of cryotherapy, with only 1 referencing heat therapy. Of these, 5 essays were adequate for meta-analysis, all regarding cryotherapy. The difference between the groups with the use of ice and those without the use of ice was statistically significant for pain on the days assessed (P