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Objective: Bacteria entering the bloodstream through oral mucosa cause bacteremia, which can lead to septic or distant infections. The underlying factors and need for dental treatment in patients referred for oral examination because of septic infection were investigated. It was expected that general diseases and poor socioeconomic status of patients would increase the risk of bacteremia. Method and materials: This descriptive retrospective study included patients (N = 128) referred from medical clinics of the Helsinki University Hospital (HUH), during 2012 to 2017, to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases due to bacteremia suspected to be of oral origin. Data were extracted from medical and dental records according to the World Health Organization International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) for systemic or remote infections. Different groups were formed using modified Skapinakis classification for socioeconomic status (SES), from I (high) to V (low). Underlying medical conditions were retrieved according to McCabe classi- fication: healthy, nonfatal, ultimately fatal, and rapidly fatal diseases. The data were analyzed using the statistical software package SPSS (IBM). Results: Patients were referred most often from the Departments of Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine. Because of infection, 12 patients needed aortic or mitral valve operations. Many of the patients were intravenous drug users. However, the majority of patients presented McCabe class I, indicating no systemic disease. The main SES was intermediate III. Tooth extraction was the principal mode of treatment. No demographic background variables were identified to explain increase of the risk for bacteremia except that most patients were men with untreated dental problems. Conclusions: Contrary to the authors' expectation, poor SES and underlying diseases did not seem to link to the outcome. However, untreated dental infections present an evident risk for life-threatening septic complications also in generally healthy individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and reports the patient-specific characteristics of an urgent dental care clinic for COVID-19 infected, suspected, exposed or quarantined patients from March to December 2020 in the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, Finland. The triage and the treatment protocol were established based on the scientific data. Patient files were evaluated from the hospital district's electronic medical record system. IBM SPSS software was used for statistical analysis. There were 1114 consultations and 257 visits at the clinic. Most of the patients were generally healthy with mean age of 35, had toothache and were suspected to be SARS-CoV-2 positive. Seventeen of the patients received positive tests for COVID-19 infection. The main treatment was tooth extraction, mostly due to caries. Statistically significant differences between COVID-19 infected and other patients occurred in age (45 vs 34 years-of-age, p =.009) and number of teeth (25 vs 28, p =.031). No SARS-CoV-2 infection transmission chains were traced to the clinic. During the challenging pandemic time, patients were carefully screened by specialists in clinical dentistry and treated safely and effectively. Patient-specific characteristics revealed no differences between COVID-19 infected and other patients in terms of symptoms or treatment needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]