Oral microbiome in patients with osteonecrosis of the jaw

Osteonecrosis of the jaw is a condition in which inflammation caused by oral bacterial infection spreads to the bone marrow in the jawbone, causing a variety of symptoms that are sometimes very difficult to treat. Even in healthy individuals, the progression of dental caries can lead to pulpitis if the inflammation spreads to the nerve of the tooth, and if left untreated, the pulp can become gangrenous. If the infection spreads from the gangrenous pulp to the periodontal tissue, it can progress to alveolar osteitis and more extensive osteitis of the jaw. If osteomyelitis develops, the bone marrow, which is normally rich in blood, may become sclerotic and degenerated, causing acute symptoms such as infection and associated pain, and failure of healing after tooth extraction. In this study, we performed 16S rRNA sequencing on samples derived from patients with osteonecrosis of the jaw and analyzed them in comparison with the oral microbiome of healthy humans.