Postoperative Alopecia Following Oral Surgery
November 2018
in “
Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
”
TLDR Hair loss can occur after oral surgery, likely due to stress and pressure on the scalp, and usually gets better on its own.
The document reported on two cases of postoperative alopecia, a condition of hair loss that occurred after oral surgery under general anesthesia. The first case involved a 5-year-old girl with hair loss in the occipital region 20 days after surgery, which resolved in 4 months without treatment. The second case was a 19-year-old male who experienced hair loss in the same region about 30 days post-surgery, with spontaneous recovery after 5 months. The paper proposed that the hair loss could be due to perioperative stress and pressure-induced ischemia from head immobilization during surgery. It identified potential risk factors such as long surgery duration, hypotension, blood loss, anemia, hypothermia, and certain headrests. The paper highlighted the need for preventive measures like repositioning the head and avoiding hard gel headrests, as treatments like topical steroids were ineffective.
