Antibiotic Preventative Therapy for Endocarditis and Bacteremia Following Oral Surgery

Abstract

It is generally established that patients who are at risk for infective endocarditis (IE) and who are undergoing oral surgery operations should receive antibiotic prophylaxis. Recommendations are based on the outcomes of prophylaxis studies in animal models of endocarditis, in vitro susceptibility data of pathogens that cause endocarditis, procedurerelated studies of bacteremia, and studies of the efficacy of antimicrobial prophylaxis for prevention of postsurgical bacteremia because there haven't been any controlled clinical trials of antibiotic regimens for the prevention of endocarditis in humans.When preventive antibiotics were employed, clinical study results showed a rapid and significant decrease in bacteremia following oral surgery, however other research questioned the effectiveness of antibiotic prophylaxis for post-extraction bacteremia