Abstract
Bacteremia resulting from dental surgery is increasingly recognized as a health risk, especially in older and immunocompromised patients. Dentistry-associated bacteremia can lead to remote infections, as exemplified by valvular endocarditis. Emerging evidence points to a novel role played by oral cavity commensals in the pathogenesis of diabetes, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Whether dental extraction, a commonly undertaken procedure in old horses, causes bacteremia has not been reported extensively. In a prospective clinical study using next generation sequencing (based on bacterial 16S rRNA), the circulating blood microbiome was characterized before and at 1 h following extraction of incisor, canine or cheek teeth from 29 adult horses with dental disease. 16S rRNA gene sequencing results from the blood microbiome were compared with those from gingival swab samples obtained prior to extraction at the location of the diseased tooth. Bacteremia associated with translocated gingival commensals was demonstrated in horses undergoing exodontia and was, in some cases, still evident one hour post-operatively.
Highlights
Post-exodontia bacteremia was recently reported by Kern et al (2017), occurring in 18 out of 20 horses using conventional bacteriological culturing m ethods[31]
A total of 34 procedures were performed on 29 horses
To the authors’ knowledge, there have been no previous characterizations of an equine blood microbiome, either in health or disease
Summary
Post-exodontia bacteremia was recently reported by Kern et al (2017), occurring in 18 out of 20 horses using conventional bacteriological culturing m ethods[31] This was a noteworthy finding, it was likely limited by the method (conventional microbiological culturing) used to detect blood-borne bacteria, which relies on laboratory cultivation of bacteria present in the circulation. Conventional bacterial culturing is limiting because most oral cavity bacteria are uncultivable[32] An alternative method, such as 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing allows for identification of cultivable bacteria and bacteria that might be present in small numbers or uncultivable via standard techniques[32,33,34,35,36]. A secondary aim was to compare gingival swab microbiomes to blood microbiomes before and following exodontia
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