Preoperative antibiotics are not indicated prior to closure of oroantral communication

The aim of this paper was to determine whether the use of preoperative antibiotics improves surgical outcomes following oroantral communication (OAC) closure.A single‐centre, retrospective study was conducted on all OAC repair procedures over a 24‐month period assessing a number of datapoints including the site of OAC occurrence, time to repair, local anaesthetic or general anaesthetic, and any complications noted. Patient follow‐up was up to 3 months post‐operative OAC closure. Data outputs primarily included descriptive statistics for demographic datasets included in the study. Fisher's exact test was used to determine non‐random associations between categorical variables (preoperative antibiotics vs. no preoperative antibiotics; successful closure vs. failed closure).Thirty‐one patients met the inclusion criteria and timeframe of this study. All OACs were a result of dental extraction. For patients who had an OAC visualised immediately after extraction, 18 had an OAC repair completed on the same day. Fifteen patients had a delayed closure, defined as a closure over 48 h following the development of OAC. Thirteen patients had their procedure completed under local anaesthetic; none had preoperative antibiotics prior to surgery. Only one patient with delayed closure of an OAC who had a procedure completed under local anaesthetic had a prophylactic dose 1 h prior to surgery. Patients who underwent OAC closure under general anaesthetic received an intra‐operative dose of antibiotics. Using Fisher's exact test, there was no significant difference between the two groups (preoperative antibiotics given vs. no preoperative antibiotics given) with regard to the likelihood of success following OAC closure (p = 0.1419).This study demonstrates that the routine use of preoperative antibiotics may not improve surgical outcomes following the closure of oroantral communication.