Duration, prevalence and intensity of bacteraemia after dental extractions in children.

Abstract

To investigate the duration, prevalence and intensity of bacteraemia after dental extractions in children by comparing within-patient bacteraemia before and after dental extraction. Children were randomly allocated to one of 10 postprocedure time groups from 10 s to 60 min. The differences between intensity and prevalence of the bacteraemia at each time after extractions were used to estimate the duration of the bacteraemia. After attainment of general anaesthesia, pre-extraction and postextraction blood samples were processed by broth culture and lysis filtration to isolate and quantify bacteria present in the patients' blood. 500 subjects between 3 and 16 years old were recruited. The estimated duration of bacteraemia was about 11 min. The duration of bacteraemia after dental extractions is less than previously thought. This has implications for the interpretation of odontogenic bacteraemia studies.