Powell CA, Mealey BL et al. J Periodontol 2005; 76: 329–333

Such infections are rare and there may be no benefit in prophylactic antibiotics.

This was a retrospective review of 1053 periodontal surgical procedures in 395 patients at a US military dental clinic. The techniques employed included osseous resection and grafting, flap curettage, distal wedge procedures, gingivectomy, root resections, guided tissue regeneration (GTR), implant surgery, soft tissue grafts, coronally positioned flaps, sinus augmentations and ridge preservation or augmentation. Infection was defined as increasing and progressive soft tissue swelling with presence of suppuration.

There were 8 diagnosed infections in 374 osseous resective procedures, 4 in 134 GTR procedures, 3 in 82 connective tissue grafts, 2 in 88 flap curettages, 2 in 175 implants (both stages), and 3 in other procedures. There were 8 infections in 281 procedures where antibiotics were used, and 14 in 772 where they were not. There was no statistically significant relationship of infection to any variable studied. The authors do not report the full relationship of smoking to infection in this series, although they state that 2 patients with more than 1 infection on separate occasions were not smokers.