Relationship among the quality of microbiological samples collected from patients with orofacial infections, clinical severity of the infection, and the rates of isolation of causative agents

Abstract

For the identification of bacterial agents responsible for dental infections, samples are aspirated from closed abscesses by using aspiration needles, while avoiding contamination by the normal bacterial flora. The oral cavity is an environment that is readily contaminated with bacteria and it is necessary to constantly monitor the quality of the sample that has been collected. We prepared a standard for testing materials based on their freshness and quality and confirmed their correlation with the clinical symptoms. The percentage of isolation of causative agents was high and both bacterial volume and phagocytosis were rated over 3 + in the samples collected from those patients in whom infections had been bacteriologically cinfirmed. As for the correlation between severity and bacterial isolation, the percentage of isolation of anaerobic bacteria was high in proportion to the severity of the illness. In view of these findings, it was concluded that the standard of quality we set in this study has an important bearing on clinical symptoms and that such a standard is clinically significant. It is essential to consider the quality of the samples that have been collected when one attempts isolate the right causative bacterial agents in orofacial infections.