Evaluation of the role of antibiotics in preventing postoperative complication after routine periodontal surgery: A comparative clinical study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Aim of this randomly controlled clinical study was to evaluate the role of antibiotics to prevent postoperative complications after routine periodontal surgery and also to determine whether their administration improved the surgical outcome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-five systemically healthy patients with moderate to severe chronic periodontitis requiring flap surgery were enrolled in the study. They were randomly allocated to Amoxicillin, Doxycycline, and control groups. Surgical procedures were carried out with complete asepsis as per the protocol. Postoperative assessment of patient variables like swelling, pain, temperature, infection, ulceration, necrosis, and trismus was performed at intervals of 24 h, 48 h, 1 week, and 3 months. Changes in clinical parameters such as gingival index, plaque index, probing pocket depth, and clinical attachment level were also recorded. RESULTS: There was no incidence of postoperative infection in any of the patients. Patient variables were comparable in all the three groups. Though there was significant improvement in the periodontal parameters in all the groups, no statistically significant result was observed for any group over the others. CONCLUSION: Results of this study showed that when periodontal surgical procedures were performed following strict asepsis, the incidence of clinical infection was not significant among all the three groups, and also that antibiotic administration did not influence the outcome of surgery. Therefore, prophylactic antibiotics for patients who are otherwise healthy administered following routine periodontal surgery to prevent postoperative infection are unnecessary and have no demonstrable additional benefits.