We get asked a lot, which patients need a bacterial test or whom do we recommend bacterial testing. There are a lot of variables in that question so maybe we can answer a few of those here.
1. Patients with bleeding on probing: Anytime there is bleeding that is a sign of an infection. Healthy gums don’t bleed….gum tissue is just a form of skin. If you were to rub or scratch the skin on your arm does it bleed …no, but if there was an infection yes, it would bleed. Therefore, those patients need a bacterial “culture” test to determine how bad the infection is and if a systemic antibiotic is needed during treatment.
2. Implants: This would include new implant cases or cases where there is a bit of inflammation around an implant. Why do a lot of implants fail…infection/inflammation. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to run a simple bacteria test prior to placing implants to confirm the patient is free of disease?!
3. Refractory perio cases: Patients that you have tried everything on and still no success. Or, they ping pong back and forth from health to disease. We know that several of the pathogens we test for are anerobic and live in the tissue so that means they are scaling and rootplanning resistant.
4. Medically compromised patients: This would be patients with say diabetes, heart disease, on dialysis, respiratory diseases etc. Even patients trying to get pregnant are good to test. These are patients that really can’t afford to have an infection that their body is trying and can’t fight off. The amount of gum tissues in the mouth is what is on the forearm. Just think if the forearm was bleeding and had inflammation what that would do to the rest of the body. The body would be in a constant form of fight….
5. In conclusion, anybody can be tested just because you may not have any clinical signs or symptoms does not mean that you do not have a low-grade infection that your body is fighting. I like a patient to decide how healthy they want to be. Offering it to patients is a great way to start the oral/systemic conversation!
Please feel free to reach out to us if you have questions on testing!
