Dentist's visits and risk of brain abscess: a nationwide, population-based case control study

BACKGROUND: Brain abscesses are frequently caused by oral cavity bacteria, but whether dental status and invasive dental procedures are important risk factors is unknown.

METHODS: A nationwide, population-based, case-control study examined the association between dentist's visits and invasive dental procedures and risk of brain abscess caused by oral cavity bacteria from 1989 through 2016. Date of brain abscess diagnosis was considered the index date. Using risk-set sampling, 10 population controls per case were individually matched by age, sex, and residential area. Conditional logistic regression was used to compute odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusted for comorbidity.

RESULTS: We identified 362 patients with culture-proven brain abscess caused by oral cavity bacteria. The median age was 53 years (interquartile range, 39-65 years) and 220 (61%) were male. Invasive dental procedures within 6 months before the index date was observed in 21 of 362 (6%) patients with brain abscess and 179 of 3257 (5%) population controls (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.07 [95% CI, .67-1.70]). Two hundred thirteen of 362 (59%) patients with brain abscess had visited their dentist within 1 year before the index date compared with 1944 of 3257 (60%) of population controls (aOR, 0.99 [95% CI, .77-1.26]). Using no dentist's visits as reference, we observed aORs of 0.95 (95% CI, .64-1.40) for 1-2 visits within 3 years of the index date and 1.01 (95% CI, .76-1.35) for 3 or more visits.

CONCLUSIONS: Recent invasive dental procedures and number of dentist's visits were not associated with culture-verified brain abscess caused by oral cavity bacteria.