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Duration, prevalence and intensity of bacteraemia after dental extractions in children
G J Roberts1, E C Jaffray, D A Spratt
1King's College London Dental Institute, London, UK.
Objective:
To investigate the duration, prevalence and intensity of bacteraemia after dental extractions in children by comparing within-patient bacteraemia before and after dental extraction.
Methods:
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.
Results:
500 subjects between 3 and 16 years old were recruited. The estimated duration of bacteraemia was about 11 min.
Conclusions:
The duration of bacteraemia after dental extractions is less than previously thought. This has implications for the interpretation of odontogenic bacteraemia studies.
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