A Clinicobiochemical Study of C- Reactive Protein among Patients with Odontogenic Infections in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital.

Background: It appears that studies on the association between CRP levels and odontogenic infections are limited. The aim of this study is to determine the difference in CPR levels between the different types of odontogenic infections.

Methodology: All consecutive patients that were diagnosed and treated for dentoalveolar and fascial space infections of odontogenic origin that met the inclusion criteria were studied. The data collected were age, gender, tobacco use, alcohol intake, and drug abuse. Other collected data were pain, trismus, dysphagia, antibiotics abuse, pre-existing medical condition, pulse rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, body temperature, white blood cell, type of odontogenic infection, type of treatment, length of hospital stay and C-reactive protein. All analyses were done using IBM SPSS version 21.0 (IBM Corp, New York, USA). P- Value less than 5% was considered statistically significant.

Results: A total of 44 patients with a mean age of 45.3±1.39 years ranging from 10 to 60 years were enrolled in this study. The C-reactive protein was significantly higher among patients with a positive history of pain compared to those without pain (P = 0.01). The patients with fascial space infection had C-reactive protein levels higher than those with dentoalveolar infection, and the difference in their means was statistically significant (P = 0.02). Likewise, the C-reactive protein was 17.5mg/dl, significantly higher in the patients that stayed more than 5 days in the hospital compared to those that stayed less than the same days(P = 0.03).

Conclusions: The total mean of C-reactive protein of 75.4±3.53 mg/dl was greater than the critical level, while the 9.62 X 109/L of WBC counts was lower than that of the reference value. Patients that had pain, fascial space infection and stayed more than five days in the hospital had higher levels of C-reactive protein following odontogenic infections.