NEW YORK: According to a new study by experts at NYU College of Dentistry, patients who report a penicillin allergy and are given alternative antibiotics are more than twice as likely to fail dental implants as those who are given amoxicillin.
Dental implants are a safe and long-lasting way to replace missing or damaged teeth. While the majority of dental implants are effective, a small percentage of them fail because the jawbone does not adequately integrate the implant.
Implant failure can be caused by a number of factors, including infection, smoking, or tooth injury. Many dental professionals prescribe amoxicillin, a penicillin-related antibiotic, before and after implant surgery to lower the risk of infection. Alternative antibiotics can be prescribed if a patient reports an allergy to penicillin.
For this study, Bagheri Zahra, the lead author of the research and colleagues, collected data from 838 patients. There were 434 individuals who reported having a penicillin allergy, while the remaining 404 patients did not. Patients who did not have a penicillin allergy were given amoxicillin, while those who did have an allergy were given clindamycin, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, or metronidazole as a substitute.
Dental implants failed in 17.1 per cent of patients with a penicillin allergy, compared to 8.4 per cent of individuals who did not have a penicillin allergy, according to the study. Patients who used antibiotics other than amoxicillin were substantially less likely to have successful dental implants; the failure rate for clindamycin patients was 19.9 per cent, and for azithromycin patients was 30.8 per cent.
Furthermore, patients with a penicillin allergy were more likely to have their dental implant fail sooner (less than six months) than those without an allergy (more than 12 months).
According to the lead author, "If a patient's actual allergy status is determined prior to oral surgery, we may be able to achieve more favourable outcomes by prescribing amoxicillin to those without a true allergy."
The research titled 'Dental implant failure rates in patients with self-reported allergy to penicillin' has recently been published in Clinical Implant Dentistry and Related Research.
