In recent years, hospitals which introduces preoperative oral care to prevent postoperative infections is increasing. Then, We examined the efficacy of preoperative mouth care on postoperative conditions of a patient.
Method:
The objectives ware patients who underwent oral surgery operation less than 5 hours and the patients were randomly divided into the non-oral care (n-OC) group and the oral care(OC) group. The n-OC group was underwent the operation without preoperative oral care. The OC group was checked for the dental plaque and received dental cleaning by an instrument one - two weeks and the day before the operation. The body temperature of the day before, 45 min prior to the operation, immediately, 6 hours and 1~3 day after an operation was measured. Furthermore, the white blood cell count (WBC) and C reactivity protein value (CRP) were measured at immediately and second day after the operation, and it considered the relation with body temperature.
Result:
In both the n-OC and OC group, the temperature on immediately and 6 hours after an operation significantly rose compared to one day and 45 min prior to the operation and they on second day after an operation decreased to about as operation before. On the other hand, WBC and CRP value in the n-OC group significantly rose compared to OC group.
Conclusion:
A postoperative inflammatory reaction changes with the part, range, duration of an operation. It is difficult to conclude that postoperative body temperature, WBC, and CRP are determined by only the existence of oral care from the research findings. However, it was suggested that preoperative mouth care becomes one of the effective factors which prevent a postoperative infection.