Quick tips for rabbit cheek teeth extractions

Laila Proença DVM, PhD, MV, MSc, DACZM, founder and CEO of VetAhead, highlights practical steps that make oral surgery attainable for general practitioners. She emphasizes inexpensive cameras as the clinician’s eyes, explains why preoperative and postoperative imaging is essential, and makes the case that complete tooth removal is the only way to prevent future complications.

Transcript

Laila Proença, DVM, PhD, MV, MSc, DACZM: My name is Laila Proença. I am the founder and CEO of VetAhead, where we have everything you need to learn and to see patients by Zoom or in person. This is definitely for our general practitioner colleagues. They can absolutely do it. They are already doing complicated procedures in dogs and cats. This is just adapting to a new mouth with a new space, which is a little different.

One must have that sometimes discourages people but is much simpler than it sounds is a camera. Right now, we are using a camera. Cameras are everywhere. People worry they need expensive equipment and they do not. The camera is our eyes. The mouth is so small that we cannot really see back there, and the camera helps us reach places we cannot get to with our naked eye. It makes a world of difference. In many of these systems your phone becomes your monitor because the camera connects via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to a computer, a tablet, or a phone. It is that easy.

What we need most is light because it is a dark tunnel and the camera gets us there. Today there are many affordable options you can buy online, and veterinary instruments are far more accessible than they were 10 years ago. I want people not to be discouraged by the idea of new equipment.

For diagnostics and for extractions we need imaging. That means skull radiographs or a CT scan, sometimes both, but we must have imaging. One thing people forget is to take imaging after an extraction. You need to document by radiograph or CT that you removed the entire tooth or teeth. Fractured teeth will leave small pieces behind. It is not if this will happen, it is when. Diseased teeth are abnormal and they fracture much more easily.

Here is the trick with the camera. You have the dark tunnel and a little hole where a fragment sits, and you need to dig and find it. The camera is your best friend. You cannot see those fragments without the camera. Even if you look with the camera and do not think you see anything, there may be blood or tissue covering a fragment. That is why post-extraction imaging is essential. If the image shows a fragment, you need to go back in and remove it. Doing that prevents future episodes and ensures you removed the entire tooth. Do not skip post-extraction radiographs or CT no matter how certain you are that the tooth is complete.

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