Bacterial and Fungal Oral Infections Among Patients Attending Dental Clinics in Sana’a City-Yemen

The aims of this study were to determine the frequency of clinical diagnosis of oral infections and to identify the bacterial and fungal causative agents and their frequency in patients attended the dental clinics at Al-Gumhouri Teaching Hospital in Sana’a city- Yemen.

The study carried out for one year, starting in December 2011 and ending in November 2012. The study included 296 patients of whom 153 were males and 143 were females, their ages ranged from 5 to 65 years old, with a mean age of 36.2 years. Clinical and demographic data were collected in standard questionnaire then oral swabs or pus were collected from patients and cultured, isolated and identified using standard laboratory techniques.

The prevalence of different clinical oral infections were 20.6% for dental abscesses, 19.3% for periodontal abscesses, 17.6% for gingivitis, 16.6% for periodentitis, 10.1% for dental caries, 8.4% for pulpitis and 7.4% for oral thrush. Out of the total 296 cultured swabs, only 217 swabs yielded positive culture with a percentage of 73.3%. Gram-Positive bacteria constituted 67.4% of the total isolates, where Staph. aureus was the predominant pathogen (43.1%), whereas, the Gram-Negative bacteria represented only 26.6% of the total isolates, in which Bacteroides spp was the predominant Gram-Negative isolate (26.6%), and finally Candida albicans constituted only 6% of the total micro-organisms.

It can be concluded from this that the prevalence of dental abscesses in oral infections was more common, Staph. aureus was the most common bacterial isolate and Bacteroides spp was positive in more than quarter of the total isolated microorganisms and Strept. mutans occurred in high frequency in dental caries patients.

Keywords: Bacteria, Fungi, Infections, Oral cavity, Sana’a, Yemen