Susceptibility Pattern of Bacterial Isolates from Dental Caries Patients Attending Clinic at Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Nigeria

This study was carried out to evaluate the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of bacterial isolates from dental caries patients attending the clinic at Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Nigeria. A total of 223 bacteria samples (Streptococcus mutans = 151; Streptococcus sobrinus = 36; Lactobacillus acidophilus = 22; Streptococcus salivarius = 10; Streptococcus mitis = 4) were collected from the patients. Antimicrobial sensitivity testing was done by single disc agar diffusion method on 24 antibiotics; selected into eight different groups of 3 according to action, community usage, and generation. The average group susceptibility of antibiotics to all bacterial isolates were 25.71%, 53.81%, 13.75%, 32.74%, 10.76%, 8.52%, 0.60% and 64.42% for group 1 to 8 respectively. Specifically, the most potent antibiotic in the different groups of antibiotics was Amoxicillin (42.60%), Unasyn (78.03%), Chloramphenicol (37.67%), Erythromycin (74.44%), Streptomycin (28.70%), Cefotaxime (18.39%), Pefloxacin (1.79%) and Clindamycin (96.41%). There was total resistance of all isolates to Cotrimoxazole, Neomycin, Ciprofloxacin, and Ofloxacin. The overall sensitivity of each isolated bacterial to the 24 antibiotics was 26.27%, 26.62%, 22.73%, 32.50%, and 28.13% for Strep. mutans, Strep. sobrinus, L. acidophilus, Strep. salivarius and Strep. mitis respectively. Considering the overall low sensitivity of dental caries isolates to the overall 24 antibiotics, there is a need for antibiotic susceptibility screening before an antibiotic prescription for the treatment of dental caries.