Fig. 1

A- Flowchart of the individuals selected according to CONSORT guidelines. Initially, 75 patients were screened; of these, 30 did not meet the inclusion criteria, resulting in 45 eligible patients. Among them, 5 experienced postoperative complications and were excluded, totaling 40 patients who underwent the surgical procedure. Of these, 10 did not attend the postoperative follow-up, thus 30 patients were included in the final analysis. B-Illustrative sequence of the standardized surgical procedure performed for the removal of impacted mandibular third molars. The images represent: (A) panoramic radiograph showing a patient eligible for the study; (B) initial clinical view of the surgical site; (C) exposure of the anatomical structure of interest; (D) performance of the osteotomy; and (E) tooth sectioning (odontosection). All procedures were carried out by a trained surgical team, following a standardized protocol to ensure consistency and reproducibility across cases.