Abstract
Bacterial endocarditis is one of the most serious complication of cardiac disease. Since several dental treatment may be associated with transitory bacteremia, effective measures for prevention of this infection by dentist are highly desirable.
We discussed the preventive antibiotic regimens in the literature. Several regimens were examined from our “Minimum data base” and from on-line searching with “Dialog.”
The slight differences were observed on the choice and the dose of antibiotics, and the timing of antibiotic administration among the regimens. The major changes of those regimens were less emphasis on administration of parenteral agents and a reduction of the period of prophylaxis.
Although the simplification would make compliance easier, it remained other problems such as effectivity of prophylaxis, necessity of prophylaxis for patients with mitral valve prolapse, choice of antibiotics for the penicillin allergic patients.
Because the effectiveness of those regimens have never established by controlled trials, physicians and dentists should continue to generate better data cooperative studies.
