The Trifecta of Feline Dentistry

Before any treatment is attempted, a patient with an oral tumor needs to be properly staged – we need to know, what the tumor is, how extensive it is and if malignant, if there is any metastatic disease. A webinar with Ana Nemec.

The mouth is grossly contaminated, and dental procedures are one of the most common indications for invasive procedures (dental scaling or oral surgery such as extraction of teeth). Just on this basis, it would seem appropriate to treat dental procedure patient with an antibiotic. In fact, an antibiotic is not indicated in most dental patients, because the procedure removes the area of infection, and oral tissues heal very rapidly. There are indications for use of an antibiotic, based on the severity of the oral disease undergoing treatment, the type of procedure, and presence of coexisting systemic abnormalities such as cardiac or renal disease. This webinar will describe how to decide which patients need or do not need an antibiotic at the time of the dental procedure. For patients in which administration of an antibiotic is indicated, other decisions needing to be made include which antibiotic to use, timing of the start of the antibiotic treatment and duration of the antibiotic treatment.

This lecture will describe common conditions found within the oral cavity of dogs and cats. Brenda Mulherin will give a brief overview of periodontal disease, tooth trauma and tooth resorption in both dogs and cats.