Relationship between bleeding time test and postextraction bleeding in a healthy control population

Objective. We sought to determine whether cutaneous bleeding time (BT) is related to bleeding outcome measures after a single tooth extraction. Study design. This was a prospective clinical pilot study of 30 subjects. Cutaneous BT was evaluated before a single tooth extraction. After extraction, an oral BT was determined. Subjects were contacted 3 to 7 hours and 2 days after extraction to assess further postoperative bleeding. Results. The mean cutaneous BT was 5.9 minutes (range 1.5-10.0 minutes). The mean oral BT was 7.5 minutes (range 0-20 minutes). Cutaneous BT did not correlate with oral BT or any of our measures of postoperative bleeding. However, the oral BT correlated with the number of hours of bleeding after surgery (R-s = 0.54, P = .03). The time necessary to perform the extraction correlated with the extraction site bleeding 3 to 7 hours after surgery (R-s = 0.67, P = .0006). Conclusion. Cutaneous BT did not correlate with measures of postoperative bleeding in the present study, but oral BT immediately after extraction correlated with the duration of subsequent postoperative bleeding.