A retrospective study on the microbiology in patients with oral complaints and oral mucosal lesions

The aim of this study was to microbiologically analyze oral mucosal samples collected during 2 years from patients with oral mucosal complaints.

Mucosal scraping samples were taken from 297 patients and semiquantified by culture for detection of opportunistic microorganisms e.g. Staphylococcus aureus, enterococci, aerobic Gram-negative bacilli (AGNB) and yeasts. Antibiotic susceptibility test was performed.

Altogether 297 patients were sampled (mean age 56.8 +/- 20.7). Among the 110 patients with known medical condition, 48 were systemically immunocompromised, 35 had systemic diseases, and 27 had only local oral complaints. Opportunists in moderate growth or more were present commonly in all three groups and most frequent in the immunocompromised patients (66.7%). Candida species were the most frequent opportunist (68.8%), however, their level was low and combinations with bacterial opportunists were common (39.6%). All bacterial opportunists tested were antibiotic multiresistant. Follow-up samples were collected in 23 cases out of which seven showed still presence of opportunists in heavy growth despite repeated treatment with ciprofloxacin.

This study showed a frequent presence of bacterial and fungal opportunists in patients with oral mucosal complaints, which were most common in immunocompromised individuals, however, also frequent in patients with local oral complaints only. Systematic evaluation of different treatment strategies is needed.