When are antibiotics indicated for dental procedures in animals?
top of page A: Following routine dental scaling, the majority of patients will experience a transient bacteremia (bacteria in the blood stream). In healthy animals, their host immune response is effective at eliminating bacteria from the bloodstream and resulting in the rapid decline of bacteria without the use of systemic antibiotics. For animals with underlying systemic disease (heart, liver and kidney), that are immune compromised and/or have severe oral infections, antibiotics are indicated to reduce the bacteremia. These moderate and high risk patients should receive antibiotics 1 hour before their dental procedure.
