ArticleCommunity dentistry and oral epidemiology2026
Environmental Impact of a Tooth Extraction: Life Cycle Analysis in a University Hospital Setting.
Article in Community dentistry and oral epidemiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Life Cycle Assessment of Impacted Tooth Surgery Under Different Clinical Scenarios.Dentistry journal · 2026Article
- Towards Sustainable Bone Grafting: Life Cycle Assessment of Donor Cadaver-Derived Allograft (BMG) Production Using a BMP-Preserving Approach.Journal of functional biomaterials · 2026Article
- Experimental Comparative Analysis of the Effectiveness and Cleaning Performance of Conventional and Eco-Friendly Disinfectants Available in Romania.Dentistry journal · 2026Article
- Awareness, Knowledge and Practice of Dental Professionals Regarding Biomedical Waste Management for a Green Dentistry: A Scoping Review.Dentistry journal · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesThe global impact of health care on the human environmental burden is enormous, but medical care is currently not realising the potential of sustainable practice. Similarly, dentistry and the various forms of dental treatment are not provided in a sustainable manner. This study focussed on quantifying the environmental burden of a standard dental treatment, specifically a tooth extraction, and on identifying the environmental impact of the process.
methodsA life cycle analysis was performed, simulating the entire process of a tooth extraction-including patient and staff travel, materials and washing/sterilisation procedures-using the software OpenLCA 1.11.0 and the database ecoinvent 3.9.1. The facilities, instruments and items used were those of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin. For travel impact estimations, questionnaire data on travel modalities were gathered from patients and clinic staff. To evaluate possible approaches for more environmentally friendly processes, a change of the information/consent meeting from face-to-face to an online meeting was simulated.
resultsThe greatest single contributors to the environmental impact of an extraction procedure were travel, the production of steam (e.g., for sterilisation), electricity, soap, and waste. After normalisation, the process impact was highest on the categories: human toxicity (cancer effects and non-cancer effects), freshwater ecotoxicity, resource use (energy carriers) and ionising radiation (human health). The total environmental impact was 13.8 kg CO
conclusionsModelling the environmental impact of a dental extraction in a university hospital setting provided a detailed account of absolute and relative environmental impact contributions. The reduction of treatment-related travel is the most effective measure to reduce the environmental impact of dental practice.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.