"Oral Microbes: a Potential Cause of Cerebral Abscesses?"

PLYMOUTH, UK: A recent study suggests that the oral cavity should be considered a source of occult infection in cases of brain abscesses where no clear cause has been identified. Researchers investigated the presence of oral bacteria in cases of brain abscesses where no other reason was detected. Oral bacteria were found to be in large numbers in such samples and the researchers concluded that poor oral hygiene might prove to be crucial in developing brain abscesses.

Oral pathogens may prove to be a more common cause of brain abscesses than previously suspected when modern sequencing technologies, such as next-generation sequencing and metagenomics, have become available for more complex analysis of communities of bacteria within abscess tissue.

For example, a recent study has similarly reported that ‘oral/dental’ pathogens, such as Fusobacterium and S. anginosus were prominent amongst mixed bacterial populations in brain abscesses.

In this study, the records of 87 patients with brain abscesses who were hospitalized at a single UK neurosurgical center over a 16-year period were studied by the researchers. Out of this, 35 patients (40% of the cohort) had a primary source of their abscess identified or strongly suspected on clinical grounds and were allocated to the ISI (infective source identified) group and 52 (60%) patients were allocated as NSI (no infective source identified) group.

Within the ISI group, there were 14 females and 21 males (60% male) and within the NSI group, there were 20 females and 32 males (62% male). The male: female ratio was consistent between groups. There was no significant difference in the age of patients within the two groups (mean age 58.7 years for the ISI group, and 52.6 years for the NSI group).