Benefits of Antibiotics In Post Extraction Surgery - A Review

Certain patients do require antibiotic administration prior to any invasive oral procedure. This is because even a small amount of bacteria introduced into the blood stream may have catastrophic outcomes. These patients include, but are not limited to, those with prosthetic heart valves, history of infection in the heart or heart valves, and certain patients with implanted prosthetic joints or other body parts, those suffering from immunosuppressive illnesses, and those taking immunosuppressive drugs.There was no evidence to judge the effects of prophylactic antibiotics for extractions of severely decayed teeth, teeth in diseased gums, or extractions in patients who are sick or have low immunity to infection. However, it is likely that in situations where patients are at a higher risk of infection that prophylactic antibiotics may be beneficial, because infections in this group are likely to be more frequent and more difficult to treat another concern, which cannot be assessed by clinical trials, is that of widespread use of antibiotics by people who do not have an infection which is likely to contribute to the development of bacterial resistance.The conclusion of this review is that antibiotics given to healthy people to prevent infections, may cause more harm than benefit to both the individual patient and the population as a whole