171 - Patient Safety: Morbidity & Mortality Outcomes Between Children with Early Childhood Caries Treated Under SED or GA

Purpose: The aim is to compare morbidity events among children with early childhood caries under age seven years old treated under sedation or general anesthesia.

Methods: Stratified, convenience sampling of 908 subject’s charts were retrospectively analyzed using Fisher Exact Test and T-Test for rate of aborted treatment, hypoxemia, pain correlation to ASA status, and recovery time.








Results: No statistically significant differences between general anesthesia and sedation for 1) rate of aborted treatment using one or more sedative agents, 2) oxygen desaturation, 3) respiratory reaction for children with respiratory disease, 4) pain using ASA status, and 5) recovery time between lidocaine or articaine. There was a statistically significant difference between recovery time for sedation vs. general anesthesia.








Conclusions: The findings can help to alleviate parent/guardians’ stress for dental treatments using general anesthesia or sedation. In the case of hypoxemia, both general anesthesia and sedation have minimal risk. For practitioners, the chance of aborting a sedation procedure is not based on the number of sedative agents, and should be based on practitioners’ preference, level of expertise and comfort. Dentists may choose lidocaine or articaine based on their professional experience as well as the patients’ prior drug use with same recovery time.