Having wisdom teeth out mid-season ‘could really be a deal breaker’
Contact: Steven Lee, (210) 450-3823, lees22@uthscsa.edu
SAN ANTONIO, August 8, 2024 – As a high school football team dentist when he was in private practice, Scott Stafford was performing a preseason checkup when he noticed a growth on the roof of a player’s mouth.
It turned out the 17-year-old had a giant cell granuloma, a very elusive and fast-moving tumor that, if undetected, could have resulted in the player losing his entire upper jaw. This, despite the boy having visited his regular dentist just four months earlier.
Preventive dental check-ups are not considered part of physical training for sports teams, but through partnerships, UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry has made these tests and custom mouthguards routine for UTSA football and the San Antonio Spurs. Most of the tests do not show tumors, but they reveal important dental health issues such as infections or wisdom teeth that need to be removed. And according to oral health experts, better now than during the season.
“Often, this part of dentistry is overlooked,” said Stafford, DDS, MBA, associate dean of patient care at the dental school. “Dentistry often comes into the conversation only after an accident. And it is not something that is seen from the preventive side. So much of dentistry is prevention and we always want to look out for our dental patients trying to find ways to keep them healthy and safe.”
However, awareness is growing. The International Olympic Committee, for example, created its first Oral Health Department ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, providing athletes with specialized dental care and customized mouth guards.
Making an impression
Stafford’s team, made up of dental students and faculty, began dental screenings of UTSA football players in early July, primarily to fit them for mouth guards, taking impressions using digital scanning — no longer 3D bite trays — and then using 3D printing. for the construction of the models. But sure enough, the checks also found students in need of care, including several players who needed their wisdom teeth pulled.
“If they have to get their wisdom teeth out in the middle of the season, it could really be a deal breaker,” Stafford said. “They can’t play a contact sport usually for a month after that because it leaves a gap in the bones. And so, from a planning standpoint and for a coach to have a successful season with an athlete, that front-end screening is really important.”
As screenings take place more than a month before the start of the football season, this is usually enough time for a player to fully recover from significant treatment. They could even go home to see their hometown dentist and be back in time for the sports season. For those unable to make it, UT Health San Antonio’s UT Dentistry The clinic can see them, for most anything from a cavity to a chipped tooth or even a wisdom tooth removal.
And during the season, UT Dentistry handles game-time emergencies or injuries. Stafford notes a recent study found that 5 million teeth are knocked out each year from sports activities.
“We’re really trying to educate athletes on wearing the proper mouth guards, how to better protect their teeth, how to take care of their mouths,” he said. “In case there are injuries, we treat them. But we try to stay on the precautionary side.”
Screenings also provide an opportunity to educate dental students on how to become better care providers. Stafford brought together a team of dental students to help with scans and impressions for the UTSA players.
And they returned about a week later to teach the student trainers how to make their own mouth guards, providing them with the models to produce multiple copies to keep in the locker room for replacement during the season, so they wouldn’t have to over the counter mouthguards that may not fit well.
Around the end of August, the team will repeat dental exams for the Spurs in preparation for the start of their season in the fall.
Stafford is also the dentist on call for the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, which gives him an opportunity to speak informally about another danger – smokeless tobacco and cancer. “Not only the bull you ride, but the things you put on your body can be dangerous,” he said.
Problems can develop quickly
The case of the high school student with giant cell granuloma highlighted how quickly a problem can develop before a pre-period dental checkup, even if the patient has kept up with regular home checkups.
When Stafford first saw the large area on the roof of the student’s mouth, at first he thought he had misrepresented the impression, as he had gotten it in a locker room while sitting in a folding chair rather than in his dentist’s office. Sure enough, he set up an appointment at his office to take a closer look and get two impressions again.
It was then that the boy was referred to an oral surgeon for treatment that ended up saving his upper jaw. His parents told Stafford that his dentist had taken x-rays during the visit four months earlier, and none of the mass was there then.
“It doesn’t make me a good dentist,” Stafford said. “It just means that the intersection of us meeting and him going through a screening prevented that loss. This is huge.”
As students return to school, UT Dentistry emphasizes the importance of regular dental checkups and the need for preventive screenings and proper dental protective wear for athletes. All these services, and for all ages, are offered at the Dental School clinic. Learn more at UTDentistry.org.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) is one of the nation’s top health science universities and has been designated a Hispanic Serving Institution by the US Department of Education. With missions of teaching, research, patient care, and community engagement, the schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions, graduate biomedical sciences, and public health have graduated more than 43,886 alumni who are leading change, advancing their fields, and renewing hope for patients and their families throughout South Texas and around the world. To learn about the many ways We Make Life Better®, visit UTHealthSA.org.
UT Health San Antonio Dental School offers 18 degrees and programs in both dentistry and dental hygiene, world-renowned faculty instructors, a diverse student population, state-of-the-art clinical facilities and a distinguished research enterprise. Departments include comprehensive dentistry, developmental dentistry, endodontics, periodontics, and oral and maxillofacial surgery. Scientists collaborate with clinicians and research teams around the world and work across many medical and dental disciplines to find new treatments, advance knowledge of oral health, biomaterials, cancer, pain and more. To learn more, visit https://www.uthscsa.edu/academics/dental.
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