The Effectiveness of Hyaluronic Acid in Controlling Pain, Edema, and Trismus After Extraction of Third Molars: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the clinical evidence of hyaluronic acid (HA) in minimizing inflammatory parameters such as pain, edema, and trismus after extraction of third molar (3M).

Methods: An electronic search was conducted in 4 databases. The eligibility criteria included clinical trials that used HA compared with placebo or no treatment after 3M surgeries.

Results: The search strategy resulted in 752 references, of which 5 studies were included comprising 271 patients. Regarding the risk of bias analysis, most criteria were rated as low or unclear risk of bias. All the evaluated studies were classified as low risk of bias in the selective reporting criteria. The final quantitative analysis of the variables showed that the use of HA resulted in a greater reduction of pain levels on the third (mean difference = -0.68; 95% confidence interval, -1.20 to -0.17) and seventh (mean difference = -0.36; 95% confidence interval, -0.64 to -0.09) postoperative days. There are no differences between the analyzed groups in relation to trismus. It was not possible to conduct meta-analysis for the edema variable because of the heterogeneity of the methods of measurement.

Conclusions: The results suggest that HA seems to provide a lower average pain on the third and seventh postoperative days and has no influence on postoperative trismus after extraction of 3Ms; however, more research with stronger methodology is needed to determine its efficacy.