Objective: This paper investigates the relationship between preoperative findings and short-term outcome in third molar surgery. Study design: A prospective study was carried out involving 80 patients who required 160 surgical extractions of impacted mandibular third molars between January 2009 and December 2010. All extractions were performed under local anesthesia by the same dental surgeon. Swelling and maximal inter-incisor distance were measured at 48 h and on the 7th day postoperatively. Mean visual analogue pain scores were determined at four different time periods. Results: One-hundred eight (67.5%) of the 160 extractions were performed on male subjects and 52 (32.5%) were performed on female subjects. Median age was 22.46 years. The amount of facial swelling varied depending on gender and operating time. Trismus varied depending on gender, operating time and tooth sectioning. The influence of age, gender and operating time varied depending on the pain evaluation period (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Short-term outcomes of third molar operations (swelling, trismus and pain) differ depending on the patients' characteristics (age, gender and body mass index). Moreover, surgery characteristics such as operating time and tooth sectioning were also associated with postoperative variables.