[Risk of bacterial endocarditis after dental treatment. Recent findings]

Dental procedures may be associated to transient bacteraemias that, in the past, were believed to be the most common cause of infective endocarditis, mainly in patients with rheumatic or congenital heart disease. However, a careful survey of the recent published reports indicate that the real risk to develop endocarditis following dental procedures is actually low, because the bacteraemias are very short in duration and several statistics demonstrate that only a few patients with endocarditis had undergone any dental procedure before the onset of the illness. In patients at risk, however, when some major dental interventions are needed, oral chemoprophylaxis with amoxicillin orally administered, appears prudent; parenteral administration of antibiotics (amoxicillin associated to gentamicin or other drugs) is indicated in high risk patients only.