ABSTRACT

A loose tooth is a great concern for anaesthesiologists either as a potential foreign body or a bleeding source. A 48-year-old male patient scheduled to undergo a lumbar discectomy had a loose maxillary incisor; he got his tooth fixed by using a thermoplastic external nasal splint. Different approaches such as modification in laryngoscopy or removal of loose teeth have been proposed, but fixing and keeping it in place is not a usual practice which was successfully applied for our patient. Loose incisors could be fixed and protected by using a thermoplastic nasal splint as a mouth guard.

Keywords: Laryngoscopy, loose tooth, mouth guard, nasal splint, tracheal intubation