Danda 2010.

Study characteristics
Methods	Study design: split‐mouth RCT Conducted in: India Number of centres: 1 Recruitment period: May 2005 to March 2008
Participants	Inclusion criteria: patients requiring removal of bilateral impacted third molars, for prophylactic or therapeutic reasons. Partial or complete bony impaction Exclusion criteria: patients with medical problems that would contraindicate oral surgery, bone pathology, immunocompromised patients, and those with soft‐tissue impaction of mandibular third molars Number randomised: 93 Number evaluated: 93
Interventions	Primary versus secondary closure Group A (n = 93): primary closure (2 sutures on distal arm and 1 on mesial arm of incision) Group B (n = 93): secondary closure (wedge of mucosa removed distil to second molar, then 1 suture on mesial and another on distil arm of the incision) All procedures performed under local anaesthesia.
Outcomes	Pain and swelling measure on a VAS (0 to 4) daily for 7 days. Alveolar osteitis and nerve damage also reported.
Notes	Sample size calculation: not reported E‐mail sent to Dr Danda (anilomfs@gmail.com) on 6 March 2012 requesting further information. No reply received.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No information regarding the method used to select the side of the mouth for each procedure
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not mentioned
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) patient	Unclear risk	Not mentioned
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) assessor	High risk	Participants assessed the outcomes.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No mention of dropouts, but it is unlikely that all randomised participants were included in outcomes.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All planned outcomes reported.
Other bias	Low risk	No other sources of bias identified.