Prevalence of Preoperative Anemia in Patients Admitted At Khartoum Teaching Dental Hospital

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate preoperative anemia in patients undergoing oral and maxillofacial surgery under general anesthesia. Material and methods: A prospective cross sectional hospital-based study was carried at Khartoum Teaching Dental Hospital. Five hundred and twenty three patients were included in the study, 324were males and 199 were females. Patients’ age was ranging from 6 months to 84 years. Children formed 34.6% of the patients. Cleft lip and palate constituted the largest number of the patients (173). There were 70 oral cancer patients, 126 trauma patients and 154 patients with benign lesions. Anemia was defined according to the WHO criteria as hemoglobin concentration (Hb) less than 13 g/dl for males, less than 12 g/dl for females while Children were diagnosed based on their age. Variables related to hemoglobin level, age, gender and related diseases were analyzed. Test of significance (P< 0.05) was applied using SPSS version 20. Results: Preoperative investigations revealed a high prevalence of anemia in patients constituting 48.2% for men, 45% for females and 47% for children. Severe anemia was found in 4.5% of children and 1.4% of males. The mean hemoglobin level for males was 12.8 ± 2.1 g/dl, for females was 12.1± 4 . 1 and for children was11.4±1.6. One way analysis of variance revealed a significant difference in the mean of hemoglobin between patients with different diseases (P-value=0.001). Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated that anemia is a common finding among patients undergoing oral and maxillofacial surgery and most of the time it was discovered during the preoperative investigation for surgery preparation.