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Amanda Davis

Dental Hygiene IV
Log of Literature

Preventing Infective Endocarditis

Castellanos, S. (2016). Prevent infective endocarditis. Dimensions of Dental Hygiene, 14(1),

48-51.

Do you have a heart condition or had a joint replaced in your body? If you answered yes

to one of the previous questions, then there is a possibility that you have had to take an antibiotic

medication before going to get your teeth cleaned. The oral cavity is claimed to have more than

seven hundred bacteria, but only a select amount of them are presumed to cause infective

endocarditis. Our immune system is supposed to prevent these harmful bacteria from spreading

to different parts of our body. The heart or prosthetic joint are the mostly likely targets of this

harmful bacteria. Eating and brushing your teeth can also disrupt these bacteria and cause it to

go into your bloodstream. Research has stated before that patients with certain heart conditions

and prosthetic joints needed to be pre-medicated before a dental cleaning. Dental professionals

got into that mind set of pre-medicating with heart conditions and prosthetic joints, but now the

American Dental Association and American Heart Association have changed their views. They

state that patients with heart valves replaced, shunts, and a history of endocarditis still need to be

pre-medicated while others with joint replacements do not. Studies are still determining if

patients who have a prosthetic joint need to be pre-medicated before dental appointments two

years after the surgery. Scientists have found that having patients pre-medicating before dental

appointments is questionable, but a study in England found that the incidence of infective
Amanda Davis
Dental Hygiene IV
Log of Literature

endocarditis has risen since ending antibiotic prophylaxis. Patients with heart conditions or

prosthetic joints should always talk with their doctor about whether or not they need to be pre-

medicated before their dental appointments.

This article affects me because in clinic recently I saw a patient who was taking a pre-

medication for her joint replacement, but she had her surgery more than two years ago. The

reason she still took her pre-med before dental appointments is that one time she did not, she got

a really bad infection at the site of her joint replacement. I agree and disagree with the

information presented to me. I agree with all of the research about how infective endocarditis

can cause harm to patients with heart conditions or prosthetic joints. I disagree with how they

are now thinking that pre-medication may not be effective as it was before. I learned that the

frequency of getting bacteria in your blood increases with the invasiveness of your dental

treatment. We have been taught that patients with certain heart conditions and who have had a

joint replaced within the last two years need to have taken their pre-medication before sitting

down in our dental chair for their cleaning.

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