For those people with a prosthetic joint or who have a life-threatening heart condition, blood-borne infections can be potentially devastating to their health and well-being. This is why before visiting a dentist or even before brushing their teeth, many of these patients have been advised by their healthcare professionals to use antibiotic mouthrinses to kill bacteria and prevent oral pathogens from passing into the bloodstream (bacteremia) and possibly contributing to an infection. But little is really known about which microbes are most likely during dental care to enter the bloodstream. As published online recently in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, a team of researchers supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) offer a glimpse at the answer. The scientists collected blood samples from 290 healthy adults after one of the following protocols: (1) 2 minutes of tooth brushing, (2) a tooth extraction with the recommended accompanying dose of oral amoxicillin, or (3) a tooth extraction with a placebo pill.?According to the scientists, the study found that 151 people developed bacteremia. Using molecular techniques, the scientists were able to identify 98 different bacterial species in the blood. Included among the bacteria that were identified were 19 novel species of Prevotella, Fusobacterium, Streptococcus, Actinomyces, Capnocytophaga, Selenomonas, and Veilonella. “Antibiotic prophylaxis reduced the incidence of bacteremia from tooth extraction,” the researchers concluded. “It also resulted in bacteremia with fewer bacterial species, which were cleared from the blood in a shorter time (ie, mostly within 20 minutes). Although antibiotic prophylaxis reduced the bacteremia of several species of streptococci, as expected, it does not seem to affect species of proteobacteria (eg, E corrodens) and Prevotella.”
(Source: Science News in Brief, NIDCR, June 3, 2008)
