RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the duration, prevalence and intensity of bacteraemia after dental extractions in children by comparing within-patient bacteraemia before and after dental extraction. METHODS: Children were randomly allocated to one of 10 postprocedure time groups from 10 s to 60 min. The differences between intensity and prevalence of the bacteraemia at each time after extractions were used to estimate the duration of the bacteraemia. After attainment of general anaesthesia, pre-extraction and postextraction blood samples were processed by broth culture and lysis filtration to isolate and quantify bacteria present in the patients' blood. RESULTS: 500 subjects between 3 and 16 years old were recruited. The estimated duration of bacteraemia was about 11 min. CONCLUSIONS: The duration of bacteraemia after dental extractions is less than previously thought. This has implications for the interpretation of odontogenic bacteraemia studies.
