The Effects of Intravenous Antibiotic Administration during the Surgical Removal of Third Molar: Systematic Review

Intravenous antibiotics a subset of parenteral route help in reducing the post-operative infections in dento-alveolar surgery such as the removal of third molar. However, this route lacks evidential support in the literature and thus has received less attention among the oral clinicians and proportionally in pharmacologists. A systematic review was performed in the Pubmed, Pubmed Central and Scopus electronic data bases from January 2003- January 2017 with a view to express the last fifteen years performance. From the primary queries, only 74 references could be collected pertinent to antibiotic therapy in third molar surgery including the protocols laid by American Association of Oral maxillofacial Surgeons and American Academic of Pediatric Dentistry. In the final stage, a couple of articles on in vitro studies, three short discussions, one evidence-based report and a letter to editor met the required desired criteria. The results revealed that it is highly preferable to administrate intravenous antibiotics in high-risk individuals to reduce surgical site infections. From the retrieved evidences, it can be asserted that candidates with clinical signs of rapid progressive infection, total osseous impaction and compromised health deserve to receive a pre-operative single dose of intravenous antibiotics during third molar surgery on the grounds of their vulnerability to bacteremia.