Antibiotic therapy for the prevention of osteoradionecrosis following tooth extraction in head-and-neck cancer patients postradiotherapy: An 11-year retrospective study

Introduction: One of the most important complications of radiotherapy (RT) for head-and-neck cancer (HNC) is osteoradionecrosis (ORN) of the jaws, which mostly arises from tooth extractions. The ORN treatment still represents a great challenge; therefore, the prevention is of paramount importance. Thus, the present study aimed to evaluate retrospectively a perioperative systemic antibiotic therapy protocol for the prevention of ORN following tooth extraction in head-and-neck patients post-3D conformal RT. Materials and Methods: A retrospective medical record review was performed considering HNC patients submitted to RT in the period between 2008 and 2019. They necessarily received oral antibiotic therapy with Clindamycin 300 mg every 8 h for 10 days, with the first dose 3 days before the tooth extraction. Results: Forty-nine patients met the study criteria, with a total of 107 teeth extracted. Regarding the 47 patients who did not develop ORN, 103 tooth extractions were identified (96.3%). Only two patients developed ORN at two adjacent teeth sites (3.7%). Conclusion: The proposed perioperative systemic antibiotic therapy protocol seems to be efficient to prevent ORN following tooth extraction in postirradiated HNC patients.