Preventing Infections - Antibiotic Prophylaxis

In this video, Dr Katie Suda talks about antibiotic prophylaxis within dentistry and its effect on antibiotic resistance. She describes several studies and data about antibiotic prophylaxis.

In an analysis of U.S. dental visits, it was found 80% of antibiotics prescribed for infection prophylaxis prior to dental visits were unnecessary per guidelines. It is important to remember how impactful dental antibiotic prescribing can be, particularly in unnecessary antibiotic prophylaxis, which is associated with serious antibiotic-related adverse events for patients.

Optimising dental prophylactic antibiotic prescribing is a fast-evolving field of study so we encourage you to look online for the most up to date thinking but some of this will be covered later on in the course.

Be aware that guidelines on prophylaxis do differ markedly around the world and do change from time to time. For example, while the U.S. guidelines are currently similar to those in Australia and Canada, the routine use of prophylactic antibiotics is not recommended in England.